“She died from dehydration,” Miranda explained. “She felt her skin parch and shrivel, felt her insides decrepitate, felt her lips crack and her eyes bleed. This young woman, she was of no interest to her killer. Do you realize how rare that must be? Murder, not to end a life but to create death. It’s beyond pathological. Almost satanic.”
“Death as an act of creation! In that case, there will likely be more. Do you think so?”
They talked late into the night, then went to bed.
Miranda rolled on her side, staring at the indentation in the pillow where Rachel’s head had been. She reached over and gently rested the back of her hand in the hollow. She could smell the fresh scent that lingered in the sheets, like the smell of leaves unfurling in the morning sun. She drifted into sleep, and an hour later awakened. She would call Jill at noon, when she was home from school, and see if she wanted to go out for pizza, maybe an early movie if the homework wasn’t too heavy. They both liked movies.
CHAPTER SIX
“G’morning,” said Morgan. “I’m back.”
“I didn’t know you’d been away.”
Miranda mumbled, struggling to assimilate his voice into her scattering dream. She rolled over on her back and stretched. At least it was morning.
“I’ve been up all night. It’s time you got out of bed,” he said, as if there were a logical point. “I’m still at the airport; thought I’d check in.”
“Thanks, Morgan. Where have you been?”
“Just got in from Sao Paulo.”
“That’s Brazil!”
“That’s right.”
“What were you doing there, for goodness sake?”
“Stopping over from Santiago.”
“Chile!”
“Well done.”
“What was in Chile? You are very strange.”
“Easter Island. Santiago is the jumping off point for Easter Island.”
“You’re serious. You were at Easter Island.”
“‘On,’ not ‘at.’ It’s very small.”
“Morgan, it’s too early. Meet me on, or at, Fran’s for breakfast.”
“I’ll meet you at Starbucks in an hour.”
They both knew which Starbucks — the one over from police headquarters on the corner of College and Yonge.
“So, you’ve been away?” she said when she saw him.
He rose, kissed her on both cheeks, and slumped back into his chair. He had a large cappuccino waiting for her, with the saucer on top to keep it warm. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands swollen, but he looked content, like the cat, having swallowed the canary, who endured indigestion as a reasonable price for the pleasure.
“Tell me.”
“Well,” he said, “I got on an Air Canada flight at Pearson, heading for Easter Island. When I transferred to Varig Air in Brazil, I was travelling to Isla de Pascua. In Santiago, I boarded Lan Chile for Rapa Nui. And I landed on Te pito o te henua. All the same place. It was a magical journey. Did you ever read Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches, where he gets on a modern train in the Metropolis, and transfers to an older train on his way to Mariposa as he travels back into another world defined by nostalgia and wit? I have just emerged from another dimension, defined by enchantment and mystery.”
“You sound slightly demented. What on earth took you… there?” Miranda gazed across the table at her partner, who was dishevelled, buoyant with enthusiasm. He was precious in her life, she wanted to tell him. She wanted to hug him and keep him invulnerable. “You are an idiot, Morgan. No one knew where you were.”
“On Rapa Nui. That’s what they call themselves, and their language, and the island. Te pito o te henua means navel of the world. It’s not really a name; for a thousand years they didn’t know there was anyone else on the planet. It’s a geographical declaration.”
“I wrote an essay on Thor Heyerdahl as an anthropological entrepreneur when I was in university.”
“How very cynical. You were ahead of your time.”
“Yeah, actually I wrote it in high school. ‘ Kon Tiki: Boys at Sea.’ ‘ Aku Aku: Boys Still at Sea.’ ‘Indiana Jones: An Autobiography.’ Whatever. Got an ‘A.’ Or should have.”
“You ever notice how people ask about your travels so they can talk about themselves?”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that.”
They sipped their coffees, each looking over the rims at the other. Miranda smiled, inhaled coffee, and, as she choked, slammed down her cup on the table. Morgan grimaced in sympathy. Her eyes watered, she tried to speak, she waved her hand to reassure witnesses that she was not about to expire. Everyone but Morgan looked away.
“Well then,” he said. “Given this opportunity to say a few words, let me fill in possible gaps in your memory of Heyerdahl. Rapa Nui is about three thousand kilometres off South America, another three thousand from Tahiti. There are almost nine hundred moai — that’s what the statues are called — and about three times that many people.
“Nine hundred,” she mouthed in astonishment.
“Yeah, from three feet to sixty feet tall, not all completed. Every one is unique, like a signature — you know, the same and yet each version is different. They were created over an eight-hundred-year period.”
“Sixty feet?”
“That one’s still in the quarry at Rano Raraku. I spent a lot of time out there.”
He talked on and on, and Miranda was spellbound. Eventually, it was Morgan who exclaimed, “It’s time we get back to work.”
“I was working while you were away, you know. The world didn’t hold its breath in your absence. Things happened.”
“What?”
“Not much. Do you want a ride home? Maybe you should run up and let the superintendent know you’re back.”
“Is he still living there?”
“Just about. I think he’s taken a room on St. George. It’s a negotiating strategy. She threw him out, you know. The rumour is he was not having an affair.”
“No!”
“Apparently she got tired of buying the toilet paper and pepper.”
“Of course.”
“That’s my theory: if you don’t keep track of the toilet paper and pepper, you’re not sharing responsibilities, you’re just helping out.”
“I manage to run out of both on a regular basis.”
“Exactly. And she was so busy being a lawyer, a wife, a housekeeper, and society matron, and a mother, neither of them noticed he was mostly just being a cop.”
“You know all this, because…?”
“A friend of a friend has an informant who works out at her gym.”
“Ah,” he said. He forgot to tell her about Rongorongo for sale in the marketplace. He would; she’d ask. A written language no one could read; she was executor of her assailant’s estate and he had owned an incised tablet the size of a paddle blade filled with indecipherable glyphs. It was worth a small fortune, certainly more than her
