“She’s cooking our dinner,” said Amelia. “She’s a good cook, Daddy. We’re having shrimp. I helped peel.”

And here was the girl herself, carrying a steaming wok full of stir-fried shrimp and vegetables. Paz watched her place it on the table, amid applause. She looked up and he met her gaze. A chill flashed up his neck, blossomed out in sweat on his forehead. There was a mask there, too, but behind it was not just Jenny Simpson.

They ate and engaged in the usual chat, in which Paz joined when it would have been rude not to. They seemed like children to him; he was like sitting down at a kids’ birthday party, pleasant, unchallenging, slightly tedious. When they were done, he went out into the garden and picked a few ripe mangoes from his tree. He cut them up efficiently at the table and fed his guests the dulcet yellow flesh, together with the coconut ice cream that Jenny fetched from the freezer.

After this dessert was done, Paz said, “Who’s up for an expedition?”

“Where to?” Lola asked.

“I think we should go by Jenny’s old homestead. We could bring Professor Cooksey a little basket of mangoes.”

“They have plenty of mangoes on the property,” said Jenny.

“Well, we’ll bring a bottle ofaguardiente, too. We’ll sit around and drinkaguardiente and eat mangoes and talk. They have a big open-air pool with tropical fish in it. We could go skinny-dipping after we get high onaguardiente.”

“I’m up for that,” said Zwick, and Beth Morgensen produced a naughty laugh.

“Shouldn’t we call?” Lola asked.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Paz. “Dr. Cooksey keeps an open house. He’s a welcoming kind of guy. Isn’t that right, Jenny?”

Who shrugged and said, “I guess.”

“We’ll want bathing suits, those of us who require them,” said Paz.

They all piled into the Volvo and drove to the house on Ingraham. Paz took his bow and arrows along with the fruit and theaguardiente; no one asked why. As predicted, Professor Cooksey was home and perfectly gracious, as if he were used to groups of mainly strangers dropping by in the evening. Cooksey arranged them all around the big table in the terrace, and they drank a round from Paz’s bottle, chased with beers. Cooksey expatiated in a lively manner about the history and architecture of the house and its gardens, and about the construction and ecological design of the fishpond. Those who had not seen this marvel asked to see it, so Cooksey led the party into the garden. He switched on the underwater lights, and they all gawked.

Taking advantage of this distraction, Cooksey approached Jenny and said in a confidential tone, “I’m very pleased to see you again, my dear. Are you back for good?”

“Sure. I was just helping out over there.”

“Are you quite all right? You look different.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still a little bent out of shape from what happened.”

“Of course. You haven’t seen Moie since the, ah…”

“No,” she said. “Have you?”

“Not as such. But he’s certainly about.”

At that moment Scotty and Geli Vargos came down one of the paths. The woman stopped short when she saw the new people. She seemed about to retreat the way she had come when Jenny spotted her.

“Oh, there’s Geli!” she cried and ran to greet her friend with hugs and Jennyesque babble, at which Geli collapsed into sobs. Jenny led her away to a nearby bench, where the two engaged in what seemed like intense conversation. Zwick, Lola, Beth, and Amelia had missed this byplay and were now splashing in the shallows of the pool.

“I sort of figured you had her stashed here,” said a voice at Cooksey’s side.

“And why did you think that, Mr. Paz? Althoughstashed is not the word I would have used. Geli seems to be having family difficulties.”

“Oh, yeah, you could say that. Difficulties you arranged.”

“Again, arranged would not have been my word. I think that what’s happening here is something rather outside any concept of arrangement. Or perhaps, having been a copper, you see everything in terms of plots and conspiracies.”

“Tell me you don’t have anything to do with the guy who’s been blowing up pumping stations.”

“Oh, that. I suppose I had some purely theoretical discussions about how to make, shape, fuse, and detonate certain charges. Kevin and his friend were interested, and being a professional teacher, it’s hard for me to keep from sharing information at my command, especially as the same material can easily be found on the Internet. I suppose I was concerned that they not blow up merely themselves. I explained to them that it would be quite futile to restore the Glades by explosives alone, but, you know, impetuous youth. The terrorist’s name is Kearney, by the way. He worked at the zoo, which is where they got the jaguar droppings for the silly game they played at the houses of the Consuela people. He shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“You didn’t try to discourage them or call the cops?”

“No, I didn’t, although I just gave him to you. I would feel responsible were he to kill himself or anyone else. I suppose, being a scientist and a beneficiary of western civ, I should be quite against tearing it to pieces. But these children do so much less damage than western civ does to itself that it seems absurd to go bonkers about their pathetic efforts. When it does collapse, that will not be the way.”

Paz ignored this and said, “And obviously, you knew that Moie was doing these murders, and you helped him.”

Cooksey smiled at this. “Well, he hardly needed help. Moie and his spotted friend are quite capable of doing anything they please. As for going to the police…they’d think I was barking mad if I told them the truth. They’d thinkyou were as well, as I imagine you know.”

“Yeah, you got that right,” Paz admitted. “I’m curious about one thing, though. I already figured out that you got the names of the Consuela people from Ms. Vargos there, and that you got them somehow to this priest in the jungle. How did you know that Moie would come?”

Cooksey chuckled and rolled his eyes skyward. It was getting hard for Paz to see his face in the growing dusk, but he saw that. Cooksey said, “Honestly, my dear man, you give me far too much credit. Our Jenny will have told you about the death of my wife, how she exhausted herself trying to rescue some tiny portion of the living information being turned into money during that time, and so met her doom. What Jenny didn’t say, because I didn’t tell her, is this. First, the destruction of that particular patch of forest was a Consuela operation, and so all the calamities that followed in my life may be laid at the door of that firm. Second, after she died I went quite insane. I took acanoa and traveled upriver until I got to San Pedro Casivare, the last place on the map. I drank pisco. I had enough money to drink myself to death, which was my plan. There was one other fellow there who seemed to have the same thing in mind.”

“The priest,” said Paz.

“Just so. Father Timothy. Well, not to draw this out, we exchanged sad stories, and after that we drank a little less each day, and fished more. He decided to return to being a priest, to the extent that he resolved to seek holy martyrdom among a tribe of people we’d heard of, who routinely killed anyone who strayed within their borders. He convinced me that I owed it to my daughter to go home and take care of her. So I did; I took care of her by killing her. She was the image of my wife.”

Cooksey fell silent here. Paz waited, observing that Cooksey was staring at the group by the pool, and especially, it seemed, at the frolicking Amelia. The adults had removed varying levels of clothing. Zwick and Scotty were in their shorts. Jenny was entirely nude, as was Beth. Lola and Amelia were in suits, Geli in bra and panties. Someone had brought theaguardiente bottle out and a bottle of Mount Gay rum to keep it company; little remained in either. The first faint feelings of uneasiness prickled in Paz’s belly. There was something a little too exuberant about the scene. Geli Vargos, for example, had been depressed a moment ago; now she was near naked and whooping.