Die Again (Rizzoli & Isles, #11)(34)

“We get any closer, she’ll spring on us. And I won’t kill a leopard just to retrieve a corpse.”

I remember what he once told us: that he would never kill a big cat. That he considered them sacred animals, too rare to sacrifice for any reason, not even to save his own life. Now he stands behind those words, even as Isao’s corpse dangles above us, and the leopard guards her meal. Johnny suddenly seems as strange a beast as any I’ve yet encountered in this wild place, a man whose respect for this land runs as deep as the roots of these trees. I think of Richard, with his metallic-blue BMW and his black leather jacket and aviator glasses, things that made him seem masculine to me when we first met. But they were only trappings, to adorn a mannequin. That’s what the word means, isn’t it? A model of the human body, not real. Until now, it seems that I have known only mannequins who look like men, pretend to be men, but are merely plastic. I will never find another man like Johnny, not in London, not anywhere, and that is a heartbreaking thing to realize. That I will search for the rest of my life, and will always look back to this moment, when I knew exactly which man I wanted.

And would never be able to have him.

I reach toward him and whisper: “Johnny.”

The rifle blast is so shocking I lurch backward, as if I’ve been struck. Johnny stands as frozen as a marksman’s statue, his gun still aimed at the target. With a deep sigh he lowers the weapon. He bows his head as if praying for forgiveness, here in the church of the bush, where life and death are two halves of the same creature.

“Oh my God,” I murmur and stare down at the leopard, which fell dead only two paces away from me, seemingly in mid-leap, her front claws a split second away from sinking into flesh. I cannot see the bullet hole; all I see is her blood, trickling into the grass, soaking into the hot soil. Her fur shines with the glossy elegance so coveted by the flashy tarts of Knightsbridge tycoons and I long to stroke it but it seems wrong, as if death has reduced her to nothing more than a harmless kitten. A moment ago she would have killed me, and she deserves my respect.

“We’ll leave her here,” Johnny says quietly.

“The hyenas will get her.”

“They always do.” He takes a deep breath and looks at the sycamore fig, but his gaze seems distant, as if he sees beyond the tree, even beyond this day. “I can get him down now.”

“You told me you’d never kill a leopard. Not even to save your own life.”

“I won’t.”

“But you killed this one.”

“That wasn’t for my life.” He looks at me. “That was for yours.”

? ? ?

THAT NIGHT I SLEEP in Mrs. Matsunaga’s tent so she will not be alone. All day she has been nearly catatonic, hugging herself and whimpering in Japanese. The blondes have been trying to coax food into her, but Keiko has consumed nothing except a few cups of tea. She’s retreated into some unreachable cave deep in her mind, and for the moment we’re all relieved that she’s quiet and controllable. We did not let her see Isao’s body, which Johnny brought down from the sycamore fig and quickly buried.

But I saw it. I know how he died.

“A big cat kills by crushing your throat,” Johnny told me as he dug the grave. He shoveled steadily, his spade cutting into the sun-baked earth. Though insects harassed us, he didn’t wave them off, so intent was he on carving out Isao’s resting place. “A cat goes straight for the neck. Clamps its jaws around your windpipe, ripping through arteries and veins. It’s death by asphyxiation. You choke on your own blood.”

Which is what I saw when I looked at Isao. Though the leopard had already begun to feast, tearing into abdomen and chest, it was the crushed neck that told me of Isao’s final seconds, fighting for air as blood gurgled into his lungs.

Keiko knows none of these details. She knows only that her husband is dead and that we have buried him.

I hear her sigh in her sleep, one little whimper of despair, and she goes quiet again. She hardly moves but lies on her back, like a mummy wrapped in white sheets. The Matsunagas’ tent smells different from mine. It has a pleasantly exotic scent, as if their clothes are impregnated with Asian herbs, and it is tidy and well organized. Isao’s shirts, which he will never again wear, are neatly packed in his suitcase along with his gold wristwatch, which we retrieved from his body. Everything is in its place, everything is harmonious. So unlike my tent with Richard, which is the opposite of harmonious.

It’s a relief to be away from him, which is why I so quickly volunteered to keep Keiko company. The last place I want to sleep tonight is in the tent with Richard, where the hostility hangs as thick as sulfurous fog. He’s hardly spoken two sentences to me all day. Instead he spends his time huddled with Elliot and the blondes. The four of them seem to be a team now, as if this is a game of Survivor Botswana, and it’s their tribe against my tribe.

Except I don’t actually have anyone in my tribe, unless you count poor fractured Keiko—and Johnny. But Johnny belongs to no team, not really; he is his own man, and killing that leopard today has left him troubled and brooding. He’s hardly spoken to me since.

So here I am, the woman no one talks to, lying in a tent beside a woman who talks to no one. Though it’s silent in here, outside the tent the night symphony has begun, with its insect piccolos and hippo bassoons. I’ve grown to love those sounds, and I’ll surely dream about them when I go home.