Chapter One - Richard Lewis

Chapter 23
Tina rushed along a wide gallery cut through the limestone hill, leaning into a stiff
wind. In the distance, ruffled waters of the Indian Ocean glittered under an afternoon sun,
and before her towered a carved stone bust fifty feet high, the head and shoulders of the
god Vishnu, eyes closed in meditation.
Tina was late, damn the traffic, and she didn't have Dr. Ningsih's cell number. For
weeks now she'd been trying to meet the archeologist who'd been at the bones meeting.
Tina had finally asked two of her high powered academic friends to vouch for her before
the doctor reluctantly agreed to a meeting. Was she even here?
But there she was, seated on a cement bench. She glanced at her watch and
gathered her purse. She spotted Tina and held still, waiting but ready to bolt.
"Sorry I'm late," Tina huffed. "Traffic jam."
Dr. Ningsih pushed her glasses up her nose. "That is the modern Bali experience,"
she said, her English slow but fluent. She nodded at the enormous bust. "I was
contemplating the statue. I find it ironic that on a Hindu island that worships Siva the
Destroyer as their deity, we have Vishnu as our tourist symbol. It's like having an icon of
the Virgin Mary above a Baptist pulpit."
Tina noted the gold cross dangling around the archeologist's stout neck. "You are
a Christian?"
"I am a Protestant, a member of the Church of Bali, as my parents were." The
thick lens of her glasses magnified the caution in her eyes. "You understand that I am
only meeting you because Dr. Oemar asked me to."
"Do you want to go somewhere out of this wind? One of the cafes?"
"Here we are alone. Gestapu is still a sensitive subject."
"Do you mind if I record our talk? Off the record. Only for my personal use." She
used her shoulder bag as a platform on her lap to hold the recorder. The archeologist
didn't protest. "As I told you," Tina said, "I want to ask you about those bones that were
discovered in Batu Gede. You examined them on site?"
"Most had already been retrieved. Carelessly so. I found several more. A mass
burial. I said a forensic pathologist or anthropologist should look at them, but they said I
would do."
"But in your opinion they were killed?"
"By blows to the back of the head."
"And were they killed there at the beach?"
"Perhaps elsewhere, but it's easier to transport living bodies to where they will be
buried."
"You mentioned one of the skeletons was missing a skull."
"Recovery is never exact, Ibu Tina. Many bones go missing." But her gaze was
troubled.
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