LITMIR.BIZ

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to tell him that the thing with Gordon was no big deal.” Melanie couldn’t believe her uncle kept trying to make it something more than it was.

      “Oh, it was a big enough deal, all right,” Teddy disagreed with Melanie. “It just wasn’t so big that I’d kill the guy over it.”

      “You sound more magnanimous in retrospect.” Charles held firmly to his way of seeing things.

      “With time to think it over, I figure I might have tried a kiss from Melanie, too, in Gordon’s shoes,” admitted Teddy, an accusatory glance in Melanie’s direction.

      “Where’s Gordon now?” Carolyne brought the conversation back to where she wanted it.

      “That way,” Teddy said, his arm movement encompassing a lot of the surrounding jungle. He narrowed it down: “Not far from the river. I was going to bury the poor bastard, but there are only a couple feet of topsoil.”

      “We better move fast,” Carolyne took charge. “If a big cat is hungry enough to attack a man, your shots won’t scare him far, especially if he’s now wounded.”

      Melanie released her hold on Teddy. “I’ll get my camera.”

      “God, Melanie!” Teddy was aghast.

      Carolyne was less shocked. “It’s best to have a record, Teddy. It’ll be at least a week before we get out with the bad news, longer before anybody gets back here. A lot can happen to a body in that time, considering this environment.”

      “It’s not something Melanie should even see,” Teddy insisted.

      Once again, Carolyne argued Melanie’s case. “It’s something none of us should see, but that doesn’t mean we won’t later be asked questions whose answers will be better accompanied with substantiation. Melanie knows photography better than the lot of us.”

      “It’s okay, Teddy.” Melanie was less certain than she sounded, but she went for her camera nevertheless.

      Teddy continued to object: “It just, somehow, seems macabre to photograph the corpse.”

      “The police do it all of the time,” Melanie reminded, camera in hand. “My college photography class had one of the cameramen who do that sort of thing come around to guest-lecture.”

      “From whom you gleaned enough insight to handle this?” Teddy didn’t make it a statement.

      Melanie was piqued. She wasn’t a child but a grown woman good at her chosen hobby. Carolyne had had no trouble seeing that, so what was Teddy’s problem? “I’m doing this as much for you as for anyone, you know?” Melanie said. His look said he didn’t follow that, so she spelled it out. “You think Uncle Charles has given up on his version of the story, especially when he’s had a few drinks? Without the very best photographic record of this, do you really want to tell the authorities that a jaguar killed the man you assaulted, and it did so at a spot that probably hasn’t seen another jaguar in years?”

      “Look, Melanie,” Teddy was conciliatory; “while I’ll concede that pictures are a great idea, I’d just prefer it if I took them. Or, how about Felix? He has a camera.”

      “Felix is staying right here with his headache,” said Felix. “If whoever wants to finish me off, the way I feel, he’s welcome to me.”

      “Shouldn’t someone stay with you?” Carolyne suggested.

      “If anyone had really wanted me dead, I’d likely be dead,” Felix said and rubbed the bump on his head.

      “Nevertheless.…” Carolyne was prepared to argue the point.

      “No baby-sitter required!” Felix insisted.

      Meanwhile, Melanie had conflicting emotions: appreciation of her fiancé’s concern, loathing of his assumption that he, Felix, or both, were better prepared to photograph death than was she, a woman. It was a streak of male chauvinism she’d recognized in him before; not appreciated.

      “It’s a matter of depth perception, clarity of focus, perspective,” Melanie reminded. “There are certain learned techniques of photography that make me the obvious best choice. For instance, consider the scratch marks on the victim.”

      “What about the scratch marks?” Teddy asked.

      “Has anyone else, here, realized that something like, say, a tube of lipstick, laid out beside them, can help immeasurably in later determining how long and wide the marks are, or, more importantly, how far apart they are, for comparisons, should the jaguar claim another victim?”

      “I never realized you were such a forensics expert,” Teddy said and didn’t sound all that impressed with his discovery.

      * * * *

      “How much farther?” Charles complained.

      Teddy’s answer: “Closer than Melanie or you should find yourselves wishing.”

      Melanie was no longer even vaguely flattered by Teddy’s protective attitude. She found it condescending. When was the last time, not counting this one, that he had seen a jaguar-ravaged body? Had he been made dysfunctional by the experience?

      Actually, he had looked in quite a state when he’d stumbled into camp; that memory made her less critical.

      As predicted, the scene wasn’t pretty. Melanie got ill before, during, and after photographing it; she wasn’t alone if green faces and gagging reflexes were any indication. It was only her inherent need to do the job right that provided the impetus she needed to see her through it.

      “How many pictures did you take?” Carolyne held Melanie’s head while the young women dry-heaved for not the first time.

      “A twelve-picture digital chip’s worth.” Melanie accepted another wet-wipe and wondered how Carolyne kept producing them from a seemingly endless supply. The taste in her mouth wasn’t to be believed; Carolyne offered a breath mint.

      “Wouldn’t you agree that’s enough?”

      Melanie nodded.

      When they rejoined the men, it wasn’t Melanie’s photographs any longer in question.

      “Unbelievable!” Teddy didn’t look happy. He slapped his hat against his right thigh; no dust resulted, but there was a spray of dampness and perspiration. “I tell you, I heard and saw the animal.”

      “No one denies the animal,” Roy argued. “It’s the time sequence suddenly in question.”

      This perked Melanie’s ears, even before her uncle’s follow-up, “It just pulls Felix’s bonk on the head, and the radio’s destruction, in out of left field.”

      “What does?” Carolyne asked.

      “Roy here.…” Teddy’s hat-holding hand irritatingly swung in the prospector’s direction. “…says we’ve a murder.”

      “Murder?” Melanie and Carolyne harmonized; Melanie, already weak, accepted Carolyne’s offer of momentary physical support.

      “Something about rocks in the head,” Charles added cryptically. He corrected: “Rather, rock on the head.”

      “This rock in particular.” Roy knelt on one knee and turned back the upper edge of the blanket they’d used to cover the body. Most of the dead man’s face remained blessedly concealed.

      “On which Gordon hit his head when the jaguar took him down?” Carolyne interpreted.

      “Wrong sequence of events,” Charles corrected but left Roy to provide specifics.

      “No way would that rock be there for his head to hit, if left to Mother Nature.”

      “I don’t understand,” Melanie confessed.

      Once again, Carolyne was quicker on the uptake. “It’s river rock.”

      “So agrees our

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