Derek smiled indulgently, secure in the knowledge that I considered him even more dangerously handsome than our dashing friend. He shook Gabriel’s hand. “Thanks for meeting us on short notice.”
“No problem,” Gabriel said, and led the way down a wide hallway and into a small conference room next door to his office. On the wall was a giant map of the world with lots of little pins stuck in certain spots. There was also a map of the oceans and the sky. I was afraid to ask what all those little pins signified.
A full coffee service along with an inviting basket of croissants and scones was laid out on the credenza under the window. The view out the bay window was of the pool and spa.
“Your home is beautiful,” I said. “I didn’t realize you’d moved to Dharma permanently.”
“It’s permanent for now,” he said, grinning as he glanced out the window. “I like it here. And being at the top of the mountain has its advantages.”
“I’ll say. Your views are spectacular.” I could think of other advantages that probably had something to do with those satellite dishes.
“Can I get you some coffee or tea?” he asked.
“I’d love some tea, but I can take care of it.”
“Okay. Help yourself to the goodies, too.”
“Thanks.” I took a blueberry scone and a cup of tea. Even though the coffee smelled delicious, my system wasn’t quite ready for it yet.
Derek poured coffee for himself, and we sat at the conference table.
Gabriel handed us a thick printout of the security system log and pointed out that he’d arranged it so that the top three pages listed the activity at the doors to the storage cave. The hours were listed in military time. As soon as I solved that little puzzle, I was able to read the information more comprehensively.
I pulled my desk calendar out of my satchel and opened it to the first week we’d moved to Dharma. I angled it on the table so that both men could see it. Pointing to Monday of that week, I said, “This was the day we excavated and discovered the first cave and the body of Jean Pierre Renaud. The police investigators were in and out numerous times, but you didn’t have your security up and running yet. Later that day, I found the note in the book, and on Tuesday, Derek and I found the second cave. Wednesday we spoke to Trudy and showed her the cave. That night, we all met with Robson at my parents’ house, and he asked you to beef up security for the caves.”
“Right,” Gabriel said, “and the following morning, Thursday, my team was installing new alarm systems on the cave doors.” He used a pencil to point to the first line of data on his sheet. “This first log-in time corresponds to that moment. We were testing the systems all day, so you can see a series of notations. They aren’t as important as the times on the next page.”
“That’s the same morning I started my inventory list.”
Derek consulted his phone calendar. “And later that day, we had lunch with the Frenchmen.”
“That feels like such a long time ago,” I marveled, “but it’s barely been three and a half weeks.”
“A lot has happened since then,” Derek said.
“I’ll say.”
We went through all of our calendars and tried to match up our visits to the cave with the corresponding times on Gabriel’s security log.
“I’ve got seven entries logged that first weekend,” Gabriel said.
“We were in and out of the caves those first few days,” I recalled. “I was still doing the inventory and you and Derek were setting up light trees to help illuminate everything. And the police were there a couple more times, weren’t they?”
“Yes,” Derek said. “And Robson brought a few members of the commune board over to see what we were up to. Everyone was quite excited.”
“I get that,” Gabriel said.
“It took me three days to complete the inventory, working a few hours each day.” I went through my calendar and told Gabriel which days I was in the caves. He checked off the corresponding log entries.
“If my notes are correct,” Derek said, staring at his phone screen, “that following Tuesday, Robson called us over to request that we talk to the press. He had heard from the town mayor back in France, and he’d already hired the art appraiser. Word of the discovery had spread around the world.”
“Yeah, I’ve got that on my calendar, too,” Gabriel muttered.
“And Mom did a cleansing ritual the next day, Wednesday morning.”
“Can’t leave that out,” Gabriel said, smiling. “And it’s indicated right here on the chart.”
“Now it gets tricky,” I said. “Because Wednesday afternoon, Derek went to see the Frenchmen to set up a tour of the caves for them. And Trudy heard from Elizabeth for the first time. It doesn’t have much to do with the caves, but I mention both incidents because all of them are suspects as far as I’m concerned.”