"Do you know where she is now?"
"In heaven, I hope," Maria said. "She died maybe ten years later. I don't know why. She would still have been young. I think what happened killed her. It just took some time to do it."
Another theory down. "What was her name?" I asked.
"Margaret," Maria said.
"How did you feel towards those young men? It was a terrible mistake to make."
"I was very angry at first," she said. "But accidents happen, mistakes are made. We Rapa Nui tend to be more accepting of these kinds of things than perhaps you would be. Perhaps it is our tragic history. I have tried very hard to forgive."
"Has Felipe forgiven them?"
"That, I cannot say," she said. "I think so. He did love little Tavake. We lost a little girl a year or so before the Pedersens arrived here. She got very sick and died before we could get her to Santiago for medical help. I think Felipe saw something of his daughter in Tavake. Gordon, yes, I think he has forgiven. The others, I don't know. I know he never liked Jasper. None of us did."
I went back to the hotel yet again, and took a good look at the photograph, which Brian had very kindly printed off for me. There were nine people in that photograph, six of whom were dead. That left Andrew, who was obviously terrified he would be next, and Gordon, whose daughter was already a victim, and Felipe Tepano. He might be in his early seventies, but he was one tough seventy-something-year-old. I'd seen him haul stuff around the grounds of the hotel that would give me pause. I didn't think a body or two would even slow him down. Still, I didn't think he was the killer, anymore than the other two were. So that was the whole group. I didn't know where to go from there.
And then I had one of those forehead-slapping moments when you wonder how you could possibly be so obtuse. Of course there had been someone else there, the someone who had taken the photograph! It was possible, of course, that the camera had a timer, but I didn't think so. I needed another person, and the photographer was that person.
I phoned the Tepano guesthouse. The phone rang and rang. Not only was there no answer, but there was no answering machine or voicemail.
I had been looking for people over the age of fifty or sixty. I needed to expand the age range. I had assumed that Flora was an only child. Maybe she was their only child. Maybe either or both of them had been married before. There could be a sibling. Flora was four. The sibling, if from a previous marriage, would have to be older obviously, perhaps much older, if Professor Pedersen's child. Flora would have been about thirty-four if she'd lived. So who got pulled into the circle if I said forty-something or older?
Rory Carlyle? If there was a connection there, I didn't know what it was. He didn't like Jasper, but despite what Fuentes thought, his connection to Seth and Dave seemed to be pretty remote. He was in his forties, though, and therefore stayed on the list. Brian, however, was way too young.
Yvonne and Enrique might qualify, but it would be close. This person, whoever it was, had to be old enough to take a decent photograph. Kent Clarke would be back in the running again, too. My list of suspects was growing longer. This was not the way I wanted it to go.
When I thought about it, I decided that Gabriela was the key. She really was the odd victim out. She lived on Rapa Nui; she did not need to be lured here. She worked at the hotel, but she didn't stay, and she wasn't attending the congress. She had come to get her belongings, and she'd been upset, but I now knew why.
It was her cards, which Andrew/Cassandra had had the bad taste to tell her about. Celestino, the hotel manager, had said there was some commotion, which is why he'd found her in the hedge. What had happened to her after she got her things? Did she leave the hotel, only to be brought back? Not likely. Perhaps it was the scene of the crime, not the photograph, that would tell me what I now needed to know.
The sun was hot, even with the ocean breeze, and several of the Moaimaniacs were out by the pool. Moira was outside talking to Gordon, who had obviously driven her back to the hotel from her visit to Rory. They waved as I walked by. I walked along from Tepano's Tomb, past one row of rooms, and into the garden where Gabriela had been found.
I looked at the row of rooms by the sea. Jasper had stayed there. Dave had stayed elsewhere, in another building, but he'd been found on Tepano's Tomb, which was well within my view. Standing where I was in the garden, I could see Jasper's room, Dave's final resting place, and the place by the hedge where Gabriela had been found. I very slowly looked around.
It was so obvious: the garden shed, also known as the site office of Kent Clarke Films. I ran up to it, flung open the door, only to find it empty, except for a bare table, and a horseshoe on a nail over the door.
I was back outside and on my way to call Pablo Fuentes when what I suppose was either the culmination of Anakena's plan, or a last ditch effort to wreak havoc and death before we all left the island, began to unfold. In my mind it was this frightening tableau, a scene that seemed to move in slow motion. To one side of the picture, Moira and Gordon were saying goodbye, with Moira turning back toward our room and Gordon heading the opposite way toward the main building, passing Cassandra as he did so. Edith was playing with a cat on the far side of the drive from Moira. The Kent Clarke van was slowly moving up the drive. As it approached Edith's position, it stopped, the door opened, and Edith walked toward it.
"Gordon," I yelled as loud as I could. "Edith! Get Edith! Edith, run away!"
It was too late. The little girl was in the van, and it was starting to move. Moira, who had heard me and turned to see what had happened, grabbed the passenger door, wrenched it open, and climbed in as the van sped away. It swerved at the gate, but kept going.
Gordon, realizing at last what had happened, ran to his truck and started after them. My car was at least fifty yards away. "Andrew," I yelled, and he too started to run. We got into the Suzuki, but we were very far behind.
"Where?" I said.
"Anakena," he said, grimly. "Go!"
It was fortunate I'd been there before and could find the way. The fastest route to Anakena from the hotel hugged the airport runway before setting a diagonal course right through the middle of the island. I drove as fast as I could, and on occasion we could see Gordon's truck way ahead. When we got close to the beach there was a choice of roads. "Which way?" I said.
"I don't remember," he said. "It's not the same as it was. Just get me to the beach. I need to get my bearings on the beach."
I picked the road that led to the parking area. I couldn't see either Gordon's truck or the Kent Clarke van. "We've come the wrong way," I said, but Andrew was already out of the car and heading for the water.
Anakena Beach is a horseshoe-shaped ring of white coral sand, a strange oasis in an essentially rocky coast. The ground starts to rise gradually as you leave the sea. There are two hills, large mounds really, nearby, and I could see a cave near the top of one of them. But Andrew didn't go that way. He stood, his back to the water for a moment, looking left and right, before he started running across the sand. I followed. The surface was soft and very hard to run through, my feet sinking into the burning sand. I wasn't dressed for this and neither was Andrew.
He began shedding his garb as he ran, clothes flying everywhere, first the wig, then the long skirt, the jacket and then the blouse, until he was down to running shoes and his boxer shorts.