Gideon cut in. “I understand that it would have been filed with the health department. Let's see, that would probably have been-"
"There is no exhumation order with the health department."
"Now look, Colonel,” John said, “Nick Druett told me he filed one. Are you telling us-"
"Your uncle did file such a request. Subsequently, he withdrew it."
"Withdrew!" John exclaimed, jumping to his feet and leaning with both hands on Bertaud's desk. "Why?"
"I suggest you ask him. Now, gentlemen, as enjoyable as this has been, my time is limited and I must-"
"Let's go, Doc,” John said abruptly.
Gideon rose. “Thank you for your help, Colonel."
"One moment more, please, gentlemen,” Bertaud said. The transparent blue eyes held them. “I hope you will enjoy your stay in Tahiti, but I remind you that you are on French soil. I will tolerate no interference in island affairs. This is understood?"
John returned his stare. "Oui, mon colonel!" he said.
And clicked his heels and saluted.
Chapter 12
"I am really steamed,” John said through clenched teeth. “I mean, I am really pissed! I mean, I really let that little crud get to me."
"No kidding,” Gideon said. “Really?"
He had convinced John to stop for a cool-down beer at a sidewalk cafe a few blocks from the gendarmerie, in the heart of Papeete's downtown; a busy place with bright, cherry-colored canvas chairs, bright cherry-colored plastic tables, and a big, bright, cherry-colored canvas awning over everything that filtered the strong sunshine, letting through only a cool, watery, reddish glow that made it seem as if they were sitting on the bottom of a pink-lemonade ocean. Even the dust motes were rosy. Cafe Le Retro, it said on the awning. Pizzeria-Brasserie-Bar Americain. And if nothing else, at least the music on the speaker system was American: Elvis Presley crooning “Love Me Tender."
"Eez he ghrreally weez zuh aef-bee-aie?” John mouthed, doing a savage, surprisingly good imitation of Bertaud. “What a prune."
"He was just trying to be funny,” Gideon said. “It was a joke."
"Sure.” John glowered at him over the table. “Did you think it was funny?"
"Of course I didn't,” Gideon said promptly, glad now that he'd managed to resist the impulse to laugh at the time. “But remember, you were getting on his nerves a little too."
"Me!” John was flabbergasted. “What did I do?"
"Well, you did imply once or twice that an investigation that he signed off on might have been botched."
John dismissed this with a grunt. “He's short, that's his problem. He's got a chip on his shoulder, and all anybody- what's the joke now?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh. I just don't remember you letting anybody get under your skin like this.” The waiter arrived with their order: two Hinano beers in squat brown bottles with labels that proclaimed them la Biere de Tahiti in bold letters above a Polynesian version of the girl on the White Rock bottles.
John swigged directly from his bottle. “You know who he reminds me of? Not in looks, I mean. My brother, Nelson.” Then, perhaps mellowed by the beer: “Well, I don't know, maybe not as bad as Nelson.” He heaved a sigh and settled down. “Listen, you think he was telling us the truth about the exhumation?"
"The commandant of police?” Gideon poured a half-glass of Hinano that he didn't really want. “Sure, why would he lie?"
"I don't know. But if he's not lying, that means that Nick is. He didn't run into any red tape, he just changed his mind. And that raises some questions."
"Such as, what are we doing here?"
"Such as, what the hell is going on? Why would Nick back down?"
"It happens, John. Digging up relatives makes people squeamish when the time comes. It's not that surprising."
Maybe it wasn't, John told him, but weasel-words from Nick Druett were, no matter the circumstances. When Nick committed himself to something he did it; no fencing, no dodging, no humbug about Tahitian red tape.
"Besides,” John added, “if he changed his mind, why would he fly us out here, and put us up, and all the rest of it?"
"Beats me. He's your uncle; you ought to do what Bertaud said and ask him “
"Yeah, I'll do just that,” said John. “But you know what I'm starting to think? I think Bertaud and Nick are-” he held up two fingers close together “-like that. I think Bertaud's in Nick's pocket. Nick's a powerful guy around here."
Gideon shook his head. “John, I really don't think so."
"Yeah, well allow me to differ.” And with that he sank into one of his rare sulks, slumping in his chair, sipping from the bottle, and scowling moodily into the middle distance.
Gideon was sympathetic, but only to a point. It seemed to him that Bertaud had right on his side, that the more they considered the “evidence” for a murder having been committed the flimsier it got, that while Nick's actions were hard to explain, there was no reason to assume that a cover-up was behind them. He was beginning to think that he and John were here on a wild-goose chase, not that he would mind all that much if that's what it came to. He had been ambivalent from the beginning, and if what it amounted to in the end was nothing more than a few days’ winter respite in the South Seas, he could live with that.
Besides, deep down he had the feeling that all these people, John included, would be better off if Brian were left in peace. Exhumations were like lawsuits; once begun they rarely turned out as expected, and however they turned out they had a way of leaving in their wake a family that wasn't much of a family anymore.
He sipped his beer, waited for John to come out of his funk, and abstractedly watched the parade of noontime activity just beyond the cafe tables, along the boulevard Pomare, Papeete's bustling heart. Guidebooks to Tahiti are near-unanimous in their advice on what to do when in Papeete: get out of it as soon as possible and go someplace that is unspoiled. Papeete, they explain, is noisy, dirty, tacky, commercial, and coarse. The bad press is nothing new. Robert Louis Stevenson sourly referred to it as “the dreaded semi-civilization of Papeete.” To Zane Grey it was “the eddying point for all the riffraff of the South Seas.” Somerset Maugham hated it. Paul Gauguin hated it. Jack London hated it.
Gideon liked it.
Papeete seemed to him a lively, healthy, unpredictable hybrid on the way to becoming who knew what, a cordial if not quite settled mix of East and West-or rather North and South-of Gallic elegance and reserve and island energy, ease, and unflappability. From where he sat he could see copra being loaded onto age-grayed tramp steamers on the nearby docks. He could see sweating tourists with loaded plastic shopping bags; hefty middle-aged Tahitian women in bright muumuus with loaded grocery sacks and with flowers in their hair; even a few grizzled, hollow-eyed European beachcombers in mildewed white clothes, straight out of a Maugham story. Farther out, in the harbor, a traditional Polynesian racing canoe skimmed through the water, propelled by a team of muscular brown youths at its oars.
And all of this South Seas ambience he looked at from a table in an undeniably French brasserie located on a pretty street of restaurants, boutiques, and airline offices. With Elvis on the speakers.
John came awake with a start. “Jeez, what are we doing sitting here? It's eleven-thirty. I've got a lot of questions for Nick and I'm gonna want some answers.” He caught a hesitant look in Gideon's eye. “Doc, you'll come with me, won't you? You wouldn't chicken out on me?"
"Well, actually, I was thinking of doing a little shopping while I'm in town, looking for a present for Julie."
"Yeah, but-"
"John, look. I signed on to do my thing with a set of skeletal remains, and I'm still ready to do that. But I'm not going to go argue with Nick about it. I don't know what's right, and I just don't feel as if I have any business interfering in this."