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Sonya and Rudolph, standing close together, as if sheltering each other from the wind or from
something more terrible than wind looked at the crab-covered lump.
You saw it? she asked.
Yes.
I'm afraid, she said.
It can't hurt you.
It was a man, she said.
A corpse.
Same thing.
No. He can't feel what the crabs are doing to him. He's playing a part in that ecological cycle, just as
a dead shark would.
She nodded. We better go see who who he is.
Probably a sailor who went overboard.
She nodded.
Saine said, You catch up with the kids, stop them and wait for me. You don't have to see this.
Before she could object, he walked briskly off to-ward the corpse, scattering the crabs before him.
Sonya turned and, shaking uncontrollably, ran to catch the kids, stopped them, and kept their
at-tention away from Rudolph and his grisly investi-gation.
Are you mad at us? Tina asked.
No.
We thought you were, Alex said.
She knelt in the wet sand and drew them both against her, hugged them tightly, felt how slight and
defenseless they were. She almost started to cry for them, for herself but knew that tears would help
nothing, and she fought back the urge to let go.
An eternity later, Saine returned from his explo-ration, clearing his throat and spitting in the sand as
if he could expel the after-image of what he had seen in the same fashion that he might clear his mouth of
a bad taste . . .
SIXTEEN
In the kitchen, at Seawatch, Bess entertained Alex and Tina with a game of Old Maid, at a small card
table which she had opened beside one of the big, multiple-paned windows. In the middle of the room,
sitting side-by-side on stools at the built-in work table, Sonya and the bodyguard spoke in soft voices,
trying to grow accustomed to their morbid discovery.
What could you tell about him? she asked.
Not a lot. The crabs had done their work.
She shuddered.
It was a man, he said. Late twenties or early thirties, white, relatively well-dressed.
Drowned?
No.
She looked at him oddly.
He said, I think he was killed.
She picked up her coffee, took a long swallow.
She said, How?
The crabs hadn't gotten to all of him, yet. His one arm was relatively untouched. I saw what I'm sure
were knife wounds.
If he was washed ashore, he might have been cut by coral.
He wasn't washed ashore.
What?
The children squealed with harsh laughter at one of Bess Dalton's bad jokes.
Saine said, He was lying in a depression in the sand.
So.
He took a swallow of coffee.
So, he said, it looked disturbingly like a grave, an oblong hole a couple of feet deep . . . The sea
had begun to smooth its edges and to fill it in around the body, but the lines were still notice-able.
Someone buried him there? Why in such an unsafe spot?
Perhaps the burial was a hasty affair. And, anyway, the tides are usually not fierce enough to reach
that far up the beach and wash out the loose sand over the grave. The killer simply had a bit of nasty
luck, what with the arrival of a storm in the area.
Still, she said, if the waves hadn't washed him into sight, we'd have smelled him when we walked
by.
The crabs would have tunneled to him and picked him clean, Saine pointed out.
Even buried like that?
Yes.
I win, I win! Tina shouted.
An unserious argument began to take shape over at the Old Maid table, probably fomented by Bess
to tease the kids.
But who could he have been? Sonya asked.
John Hayes, the bodyguard said.
Startled, she said, How do you know?
He produced a slip of pink paper, wrinkled and damp. He said, This is a stub from a motorboat
rental service on Guadeloupe. It has his name and home address, but it's been so soaked in seawater that
it's nearly unreadable. Still, you can make out the name.
She looked but did not touch.
Where'd you get it? she asked.
He said, In his trousers pocket.
You touched that thing?
It was only a corpse.
Still
I thought there might be identification on it, and there was. He tucked the slip of paper into his
pocket again.
Now, we have to face what to do with it. she said.
The body?
Of course, the body.
He said, We leave it there.
For the crabs?
What would you have me do? he asked. I could move it off the beach, but the crabs would
follow. The only other alternative is to wrap it in a blanket, bring it to the house and dump it into a
freezer. Do you think that would make everyone feel better?
Oh God, no! she said.
Then we leave it where we found it.
What if the sea takes it away?
He said, with feeling, Good riddance!
But, Sonya protested, isn't it evidence? Isn't it important to show the police what we saw
John Hayes will be reported missing, by some-one wife, mother, sister, girlfriend. And we'll have
this slip of paper, and we'll be able to testify about what we saw out there. That'll be evidence enough.
She thought a while. What was he doing here on Distingue?
Saine said, I would guess that, somehow, he was in cahoots with the man who wants to hurt the
kids.
Madmen don't work in pairs! she said.
A point which John Hayes learned too late.
He was killed by whoever's after Alex and Tina?
I think so.
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