The Web

During that period, birds and scavengers had done their work, but Laurent, referring to a conversation with 'Dr. W. W. Moreland, M.D.,' had been able to distinguish the 'external shredding and mostly superficial laceration from multiple, deep knife wounds leading to exsanguination and death.'

The victim had lived on Aruk for two years, coming over from Saipan to work as a cocktail waitress at Slim's but losing that job after three months due to chronic intoxication and absenteeism. Her lodgings had been a rented room in the village and she was two months in arrears. She'd been known to socialize with Navy men. The only surviving relative was an alcoholic mother in Guam who had no money to travel or to pay for burial.

Questioning the villagers produced no witnesses or leads but did elicit the repeated claim that the viciousness of the crime proved the perpetrator was a sailor.

Laurent's final paragraph read:

'Investigating officer has repeatedly attempted to communicate with Captain E. Ewing, Commanding Officer of Stanton USN Base, for possible questioning of enlisted men re: this crime, but has been unable to make contact.'

I started to turn the page.

'You might not want to,' said Moreland. 'Photographs.'

I thought about it and flipped anyway.

The shots weren't any worse than some of the ones Milo had shown me, which is to say they'd be additions to my nightmare file.

I moved past them to Moreland's report.

He'd been thorough, inspecting, dissecting, enumerating each wound.

At least fifty-three wounds, additional ones possibly obscured by scavenger bites.

The killing blow probably a neck slash.

Contrary to what Creedman had said, no sexual penetration.

All the cuts probably inflicted by the same weapon, a very sharp unserrated blade.

The next page was written out in Moreland's elegant longhand:

Dennis: You may want to keep this private.

WWM Postmortem mutilation

A. The left leg has been severed completely at the patellar joint.

B. The left femur has been broken discretely in three places, with a considerable quantity of bone marrow removed.

C. A deep 26 cm. longitudinal upward slashing wound extends from the pubic region to the sternum.

D. Disembowelment has taken place, with the small and large intestines piled atop the chest region, obscuring both breasts. The breasts are intact. (Extensive crustaceal invasion of these tissues exists, as well.)

E. Both kidneys and the liver have been

F. Decapitation has occurred between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae with the head left next to the left side of the body at a distance of 11 centimeters.

G. A deep, transverse wound of the neck is visible both above and below the decapitation line. Probable downward stroke from left ear across the neck indicates right-handed person slashing from the back. The trachea and jugular vein have been severed.

H. Significant enlargement of the foramen magnum has been accomplished, possibly with some kind of grasping/crushing instrument. Portions of the occipital skull have been shattered, probably by blunt force.

I. Both cerebral hemispheres have been removed, with the cerebellum and lower brain left intact.

I shut the file and took a slow breath, trying to settle my stomach.

'I'm sorry,' said Moreland, 'but I want you to see that I'm not concealing anything from you.'

'The killer was never caught?'

'Unfortunately not.'

'And the Navy man theory?'

He blinked and fidgeted with his glasses. 'In all the years I've lived here, the islanders have never engaged in serious violence, let alone this. I suppose it could have been one of the cargo boat deckhands, though I've come to know most of them and they're decent chaps. And Dennis did question them. Unlike the sailors.'

Remembering Laurent's remark about not having his call to Stanton returned, I said, 'He never got access to the base?'

'No, he didn't.'

'Why do you still have the file? Is the investigation ongoing?'

'Dennis thought I might come up with something if I studied it for a while. I haven't. Any suggestions?'

'It's not your typical sadistic murder,' I said. 'No rape- though Creedman said there was.'

'You see,' he said. 'The man has no credibility.'

'No positioning of the body, either. Mutilation, but of the head and the back and the legs, not the genitalia or the breasts. Then there's the multiple organ theft- coring out the femur to remove the marrow. It sounds ghoulish- almost ritualistic.'

He smiled sourly. 'The kind of thing some primitive native would do?'

'I was thinking more of a satanic rite… Were any satanic symbols left behind?'

'None that we found.'

'Does the killing bear the mark of some sort of ritual?'

He rubbed his bald head, took a thick, black fountain pen out of his pocket, uncapped it and inspected the nub.

'What do you know about cannibalism, Alex?'

'Mercifully little.'

'Conducting the autopsy brought to mind things I'd heard about when I was stationed in Melanesia back in the fifties.'

He put the pen back, uncrossed his legs, and rubbed a bony knee.

'The sad truth is, from an historical perspective, eating human flesh isn't a cultural aberration. On the contrary, it's culturally entrenched. And I don't mean just the so-called primitive continents. Old Teuton had its menschenfressers; there's a grotto in Chavaux in France, on the banks of the Meuse, where archaeologists found heaps of hollowed-out human leg and arm bones- your early Gallic gourmets. The ancient Romans and Greeks and Egyptians consumed each other with glee, and certain Caledonian tribes wandered the Scottish countryside for centuries turning shepherds into two-legged supper.'

He started to sit back, then grimaced violently.

'Are you all right?' I said.

'Fine, fine.' He touched his neck. 'A crick- slept the wrong way… Where was I- ah, yes, patterns of anthropophagy. The most common motive, believe it or not, is nutrition-the quest for protein in marginal societies. However, when alternative sources are provided, sometimes the preference endures: 'tender as dead man' was once high praise among the old tribes of Fiji. Cannibalism can also be a military tactic or part of a spiritual quest: ingesting one's own ancestors in order to incorporate their benevolent spirits. Or a combination of the two: eating the enemy's brain grants wisdom; his heart, courage; and so on. But despite all this diversity, there are fairly consistent procedural patterns-decapitation, removal of vital organs, shattering the long bones for marrow. As the Bible says, 'The blood is the soul.''

He tapped the file in his lap. Looked at me expectantly.

'You think this woman was killed to be eaten?' I said.

'What I'm saying is her wounds were consistent with classic cannibalistic practices. But there are also inconsistencies: her heart, typically considered a delicacy, was left intact. Skulls are frequently taken as trophies and preserved, yet hers was left behind. I suppose both could be explained in terms of time pressure- the killer may have been forced to leave the beach before finishing the job. Or perhaps- and I think this is the best guess- he was just a psychopathic deviant mimicking some ancient rite.'

'Or someone who'd watched the wrong movie,' I said.

He nodded. 'The world we live in…'

Finishing the job.

I pictured the gentle waves of the lagoon, the arc of a long blade cutting the moonlight. 'What he did to her