Jonathan Kellerman - The Web

"Abraham never went through with it."

"In his view that was because Abraham didn't merit true fulfillment. He, of course, was quite another story."

Telling the story had turned him pale.

"I can still see his face. Smiling, tranquil."

"Any similarities to this murder?"

"Several."

"And some of the factors you've just mentioned are present here, too. Dependence upon the white man, then abandonment."

"But still," he said, bending forward, "it doesn't make sense. Because other factors are absent."

"No pre-Christian culture."

"And absolutely no history of cults on Aruk!"

He rapped his knuckle against the file. "I continue to insist that this hideousness was the work of a single, sick person."

"Someone who'd read up on cannibalism and was trying to simulate a cult murder?"

"Perhaps. And most important, someone who's moved on."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it hasn't happened again."

He was ashen. I lacked the heart for debate.

"For a while, son, I couldn't stop thinking that he'd simply gone off to do it somewhere else. But Dennis has been checking international reports for similar crimes in the region and none have come up. Now, what say we put aside this ghastly stuff and move on?"

For the next hour and a half, we were dispassionate scientists, discussing cases, suggesting different ways to organize the data.

Moreland looked at his watch. "Feeding time for Emma and her friends. Thank you for a stimulating afternoon. It's not often I get to engage in collegial discussions."

I thought of his daughter the physician, trained in public health. "My pleasure, Bill."

He strode to the door. "It'll be dark soon, don't work too hard," he said. "I didn't bring you over here to enslave you."

Alone, I sat back and looked out the window at the fountain spitting jewels.

My mind's eye kept focusing on the photos of AnneMarie Valdos's murder scene.

White body on dark rock; the details Moreland and Laurent had withheld.

Probably what Creedman had been after when Ben caught him snooping: ace reporter comes to islands to find himself, finds a gore-fest instead, and phones his agent ("What a concept, Mel!").

Then he came up against Moreland and was cut off from the information. And resented it.

Moreland had concealed the whole truth from his beloved islanders but offered them to me after a forty-eight-hour acquaintance.

Wanting input from me… about human motivation.

More worried about recurrence than he'd admitted?

Couching it in collegiality- a couple of guys with doctorates having a clubby chat about two-legged supper.

A brilliantly colored bird flew past the window. The sky was still a peacock blue I'd seen only on crayons.

I got up and headed for Robin's studio. What would I tell her?

By the time I reached the door, I'd decided on limited honesty: letting her know I'd discussed the murder with Moreland and that he believed it an isolated crime, but leaving out the details.

She wasn't there. Bits of shell were laid out neatly atop the flat file along with a billet of koa and two small chisels.

No dust. Wishful thinking.

I went looking for her, finally spotted her down by the fruit groves, a white butterfly flitting among the citrus trees, Spike a wiggly, dark shadow at her feet.

I jogged to her side, she put her arm in mine, and we walked together.

"So how did work go?" she said.

"Very scholarly. What'd you do?"

"Played around in the studio, but it was a little frustrating not being able to work, so Mr. Handsome and I decided to stroll. The estate's wonderful, Alex. Huge. We made it all the way to the edge of the banyan jungle. Bill must have sunk a fortune into landscaping; there are some beautiful plantings along the way- herbs, wildflowers, a greenhouse, orchids growing on tree trunks. Even the walls are pretty. He's got different kinds of vines trailing down them. The only thing that spoils it is the barbed wire."

She stopped to pick up an orange that had dropped, peeled it surgically as we continued.

"How much of the jungle can you see over the walls?"

"Treetops. And those aerial roots. There's a coolness that seems to make its way over. Not a breeze. Even milder. A subtle current. I'd take you there but Spikey didn't like it, kept pulling away."

"Our little mine detector."

"Or some kind of animal on the other side. I couldn't hear anything, but you know him."

I bent and rubbed behind the dog's bat ears. His flat face looked up at me, comically grave.

"With those radar detectors, it's no wonder," I said. "Finally style and substance merge."

She laughed. "Umm, smell those orange blossoms? This is great, Alex."

I kept my mouth shut.

We decided to dive the following morning and got up for an early breakfast. Jo Picker was already on the terrace dressed in a black T-shirt and loose pants, her hair tied back carelessly, sooty shadows under her eyes. She kept both hands on her coffee cup and stared down into it. The food on her plate was untouched.

When Robin touched her shoulder, she smiled weakly. Spike's licking her hand sparked another smile.

As we sat down, she said, "Ly never liked dogs… too much maintenance."

Her lips tightened, then trembled. She stood abruptly and marched into the house.

We left Spike in the run with KiKo and drove down to South Beach. As I turned off Front Street to park, I looked up the coastal road. The Navy blockade was at the top, a crude wall of gray concrete, at least twenty feet tall. It appeared to be crammed into the hillside. Warning signs applied generously. An extension of chain link and barbed wire snaked up the hill and continued into the brush.

The beach at that point was just a narrow spit and the wall cut across it and continued into the ocean, creating a damming effect. But the water was shallow and still, lapping weakly at the algae-stained base of the sea-barrier. Large chunks of coral were stacked nearby, desiccated and sunbaked: part of the reef had been shattered to accommodate the barrier.

I parked atop the widest section of beach. The sand was as smooth and white as a freshly made bed, the lagoon that same silvery green.

We collected our gear, and as I carried it to the shoreline, I noticed flat, smooth rocks above the tide pools.

The altar where AnneMarie Valdos had been sacrificed.

To what?

We stepped onto the sand. The temperature was holding as mild and steady as Moreland had promised. When I tested the lagoon with my foot, there was no chill, and when I eased in for a swim a soft warmth enveloped me.

"Perfect," I called out to Robin.

We put on our fins and masks and snorkels, flipper-walked the shallows till the water reached our thighs, then knifed in and floated belly down on the surface of the pool. The reef took a long time to deepen, finally reaching eight feet as we neared the brown-red ring of coral that held back the ocean.

The coral colonies grew in wide, flat beds. Despite the lack of current, the reef's living rock seemed to dance, patches of tiny animals sharing space with bio-condos of sea urchins, chitons, feather duster worms, and gooseneck barnacles. Small, brilliant fish grazed, untroubled by our presence: electric-blue damsels, lemon-yellow tangs, confident gray-black French angels, shocking-pink basslets with the stern little faces of tax auditors. Orange-and-white clownfish nested in the soft, stinging embrace of fluorescent sea anemones.

The bottom sand was fine, almost downy, spotted with shells and rocks and shreds of coral. The sunlight made its way down easily, dappling the ocean floor. We shattered the light with our shadows, causing some of the shells to move in reflexive panic.