Murder on Easter Island (12 page)

“Could it be that the killer is performing these bizarre acts simply to scare people away?”

“Well, yes,” Tiare agreed. “But a piece of the puzzle is clearly missing.” She paused for a moment. “What I say next should be kept between the two of us.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Please close the door.”

Daniel stood and pushed it shut.

Tiare’s spoke softly. “I believe I have an idea which would explain why the killer wants me dead. You see, my young friend, it is not only my age that connects me to the past. There is something else about me you do not know, and I have purposefully waited until you were ready to hear it. While a few on the island are aware, the knowledge of my lineage has generally faded away as those of my age have passed on.”

Daniel sat, waiting.

“You see, Daniel, like a select few of my family before me —

“I am a shaman.”

“W
hat?” Daniel couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “Yes, it is true,” declared Tiare, “I am a shaman. While most of my predecessors were men, of the nine children in my family, I was the one, according to my shaman father, who had
the gift.
So, he took me under his wing and instructed me.”

Daniel said, “You had told me a bit about shamans before. What exactly do
you
do as a shaman?”

“Most of what my father taught me was of the ways of healing. While in my childhood we were restricted to the Hanga Roa area, when we were able we would sneak over the wall and pick the various herbal plants in the countryside that had medicinal qualities. The quantity was limited because of the deforestation, but my father taught me much about the ones we were able to find. I have treated many an illness over the years.

“Also, in our culture, shamans have a reputation for using dreaming to find answers to challenging questions. Dreaming for us is not falling asleep, but is actually a deep form of meditation, one from where the world of spirit can be entered. In this way, sometimes the waves of the future can unfold before us.”

Daniel asked, “Have you dreamed about these murders?”

“I have, many times.”

“What have you seen?”

Tiare frowned. “Not as much as I would have liked. Some years ago I began to sense an upcoming evil presence. Any attempt to enter and understand it was blocked time and time again, and I’m certain the entity is aware of me. What I was able to perceive was that it was from deep within the Rapa Nui past.”

“Could it be Hitirau?”

Tiare answered, “Hitirau is part of it, of that I am certain. But there is at least one other being involved, and that is where the mystery lies. I am unable to discover who that is. This person sees me, a ninety-four year-old woman, as a threat because of the information I could give you. His first attempt was to try and frighten me away. Since that has failed, the next will be to kill me.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Thanks for that. But you should also know, Daniel, if the opportunity arises, he will try to kill you. Because you are younger and stronger, you would not be as easy a target. I’m certain you’ve noticed that most of his victims have been older — much easier prey.”

Confused, Daniel asked, “Why am I that important?”

Tiare sighed, then looked directly at him. “Because, my friend, I have seen you in my dreams, and you are one that is capable of stopping this evil.”

“Me?”

“Yes — you.”

“Why not someone else?”

“Daniel,” Tiare explained, “it is because you are like many shamans; you are able to perceive things that others cannot. Your senses, inner and outer, have been extremely fine-tuned. I would venture to guess that is one of the reasons why you are such a good detective.

“And another thing, Daniel, you should know that to succeed you must go to the source of this evil and confront it. You must pull it up by its roots. Where exactly you will go, I don’t yet know. But go there you must.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I just do.”

“Tiare — will I live through this?” Daniel asked.

Tears came into her eyes as she said, “I . . . just . . . don’t . . . know.” She covered her face with her hands, as if the future was too much to contemplate, and repeated, “I just don’t know.”

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Daniel and Tiare continued on with his Rapanui lessons. It was hard to believe how well he was grasping the
language after such a short time, but his razor-sharp mind, along with his eidetic memory, served him well. Simple conversation was getting to be second nature, and he was even becoming accustomed to understanding more complex sentence structures.

Before Daniel left, Tiare handed him the key to her home, and he was on his way. As Daniel stepped out of her room into the hospital hallway, he discovered a stocky, white-haired Rapanui man sitting in a chair outside the room with what appeared to be a .45 pistol clipped to his waist.

He had a big smile on his face as he spoke in Rapanui, “My name is Felipe Nahoe. You must be Daniel.”

“Yes I am. I understand you are here to protect Tiare?”

The smile left his face and he said, “As long as I’m alive, no one will lay a hand on her —
that
I promise you. By the way, the rumor is that you are staying around until the real murderer is caught?”

“That’s true.”

“The whole community is behind you. Roberto Ika is an odd one, but we all know he is innocent. When the right man is caught, we want Roberto back. Life is a lot more colorful with him around.”

Daniel grinned and said, “I’m sure it is.”

Daniel’s head spun with thoughts of his conversation with Tiare as he drove to her home.

Why me? He kept saying over and over to himself.

It was around nine p.m., and only moments earlier he had stopped at the Te Manutara Hotel and checked out. Daniel had hoped to chat with Alame Koreta, but she was out for the evening.

Daniel pulled into Tiare’s driveway, and when he walked up to the front door and started to put the key into the door lock, he caught himself. The faint hint of a distinctive odor emanated from the side of the home. He cautiously walked around the house to a partially open window. It was there that the smell was the strongest, a curious mixture of body odor, campfire smoke and earthiness.

The killer had recently been here, Daniel sensed by the freshness of the odor. Maybe even just a few minutes ago, looking in the window.

Could the killer be in the house?

Daniel had to unlock the front door and step inside; he had to be very alert and careful. He must not forget:

Tiare had warned him.

I
t was late in the evening, and Daniel sat at an outside table at his best-loved restaurant, El Tiberon. He had just eaten a freshly grilled filet of nanue fish with all the trimmings and was enjoying an after-dinner cup of Darjeeling tea.

Daniel gazed at the beach and smiled as he discovered parents closely following two squealing young children who frolicked in the sand with their toy plastic buckets and shovels. Very soon it would be dark and given the lack of light pollution, unless there was a moon, the surroundings would be pitch-black.

The past weeks had been a whirlwind of activity. Tiare had come home a week after her surgery and seemed as good as new. Her family stayed another week to be sure she was doing well and then flew back to Santiago.

Daniel enjoyed living with Tiare. Since his grandpa’s death all those years ago, he had lived alone. It was nice to have someone in the house, someone to talk and share with.

He reflected on the hour he had arrived at Tiare’s house, the time when he stood by the window, almost afraid to return to the front door, turn the key in the lock and step inside.

What a chilling experience . . .

Daniel had carefully reached inside the door, groping along the wall in vain for light switch — not there. He then took some moments to let his eyes adjust before
he tiptoed through the house, looking into shadows, wondering when, not if, the murderer would strike out at him in a moment of absolute terror.

When he was positive no one but Daniel Fishinghawk was on the premises, he located a light switch, flipped it on and locked the front door as his first line of defense.

Perhaps, he thought, I just missed him.

Daniel sighed — better to move on and leave this memory behind.

He took another sip of his now lukewarm tea, and realized he was feeling closer and closer to Tiare, more so than one might have guessed with the short time he had known her. The longer he thought about it, the more he was certain he had no greater friend in the world. In spite of her life-threatening wound, she had continued to give him Rapanui lessons — as if she were on a mission.

He smiled and thought: They don’t make them like Tiare anymore.

Over the past few weeks, though, she had pretty much clammed up about the killer. It’s not that she wasn’t thinking about the murders; in fact, Daniel was sure she was. If he had to guess, he figured that Tiare wanted to be sure of her thoughts before she shared them with him.

A week or so ago the tourists once again began to trickle back onto the island. Four days ago another older couple, this time from France, were found cannibalized and dead in their hotel room.

Daniel was not surprised.

Salvador Diaz and his entourage had made a speedy return from Santiago, and Diaz held yet another televised press conference.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Daniel heard him proclaim, “the recent unfortunate deaths of our guests was due to another murderer trying to mimic the original killer, Roberto Ika — in other words, a copycat. Soon we will have the new killer behind bars, and our beautiful Shangri-La, Easter Island, will once again be totally safe for those of you who would like to have the experience of a lifetime —”

Daniel grimly thought: or the experience of the
end
of your lifetime.

He had just finished paying the tab for his dinner, when he heard a familiar voice, “Hey Hawk, how’s life for the retired detective?”

Daniel smiled as he saw José Tepano approach. “Sit down, José. Can I buy you something to drink?”

“Thanks but no thanks. I’m bushed and just want to go home and stretch out on the couch. Besides, I’ve got a couple of cold beers waiting for me in the refrigerator.”

“I understand. Any news on the investigation?”

“Nothing you wouldn’t have already guessed. Diaz brought the same five investigators with him, and he’s got them and me working night and day. I believe sometime soon we’ll have a new scapegoat.”

“No doubt.”

José paused in thought, then asked, “Hawk, have you come up with anything?”

“I’m completely baffled and Tiare hasn’t come up with any fresh ideas. So I’m just cooling my heels.”

“Cooling your heels?”

“Oh, sorry, it’s an American figure of speech. I’m just waiting and watching and keeping an eye out on Tiare.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about her. It would take a battalion of troops to take her out. Tiare will outlive all of us.”

Daniel smiled and stood, “You’re probably right. Speaking of Tiare, it’s starting to get dark — I’d better go check on her.”

José also stood. “Good plan. I’ll head home as well. Those beers are calling my name.”

Daniel grinned and stepped out to his car. He rubbed his arms as he felt a chill in the air. His short sleeved shirt was all at once no longer warm enough.

Daniel wondered: Why has it gotten so cold all of a sudden? With a start he remembered Puna Pau.

Oh, no, he thought.
Oh, no
. . .

Daniel accelerated and sped down the road as fast as his SUV would take him. He honked his horn and swerved back and forth, tires screeching as he avoided pedestrians, dogs, horses — anything that happened to get in his way. There was no time to spare. The wind began to gust and rain sprinkled down on his windshield.

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled into Tiare’s driveway and discovered Felipe Nahoe sitting in a lawn chair on the front porch.

As Daniel stepped out of the car, he asked, “Hey, Felipe, how are you doing?”

No response.

Daniel walked closer.

“Felipe?”

Daniel flinched as he saw a deep slash mark on the side of Felipe’s neck and a large pool of blood under the chair. Daniel quickly checked for a pulse. There was none.

“Tiare?” Daniel yelled as he frantically knocked on the door. “Oh, God! Tiare! Are you okay?”

It was then Daniel heard a scream and two gunshots echo from inside the house. He quickly pulled out his keys, unlocked the front door and burst through it. He heard more than saw the intruder as he exited through the now infamous window.

A trembling Tiare stood by her couch, holding the Beretta at her side. She said, “I am not hurt, but I’m not a very good shot. I’m afraid I missed.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Daniel asked as he saw blood oozing down from a gash on her neck.

Tiare nodded. “Daniel, you must go quickly. And one more thing —”

“Yes?”

“I know,” Tiare declared.

“You know?”

“I know where our killer comes from. Daniel, be safe on your journey.”

My journey?

Daniel took a deep breath, smelled the singular odor again and said, “Felipe, he’s dead.” He saw Tiare’s eyes well with tears, but there was not a second to spare — his friend would have to deal with this by herself.

He then dashed out the door into the dark night to follow the odor — that awful, evil odor.

D
aniel wiped the rain from his eyes as he followed the trail of the killer. He had to be careful; if he ran too swiftly, he might lose the trail. Too slow and he might lose the scent.

As Daniel gradually worked his way out of Hanga Roa, the small amount of ambient light from the city began to fade, and he felt as if he was on the dark side of the moon. He pulled from his pocket the flashlight given to him at Gomez’s murder scene and carefully scanned the rocky ground. He could hear no footsteps and guessed the killer was pulling away from him.