Brodie looked more closely at a large patch of green, labeledCanaima National Park. Angel Falls appeared to be on the edge of a large flat-topped topographical feature named Auyán Tepui, which must have been the flat-topped mountain that Carmen had seen when she landed at the airstrip in the village. So far, everything—flight times and place names—seemed to check out.
Taylor continued, “This area is famous for these flat-topped mountains called tepuis, which were formed billions of years ago.”
“Really?”
She also informed Brodie, “Auyán Tepui is where Angel Falls originates. ‘Tepui’ means ‘house of the gods’ in the language of the native Pemón people.”
Brodie wasn’t sure that was information he needed to find Kyle Mercer, but Maggie Taylor, as he’d discovered, overresearched everything. “We’ll get that into our report. Maybe as a footnote.”
She handed Brodie her tablet, which showed an aerial shot of the massive plateau-like formation surrounded by dense jungle. The summit of the flat mountain reached above the clouds. This looked like the travel posters they’d seen at the airport. If he had Carmen in the room, he could have asked her if this was what she’d seen. But how many flat-topped mountains with a waterfall could there be? Still, a meticulous investigator would show the witness three or four photographs and ask her to ID what she’d seen. His mind drifted back to Carmen with the paddle in her hand, before he’d handed her the robe…
“Brodie? Are you listening to me?”
“I am. Yes.”
She continued, “I looked up tours of Angel Falls to see where tourists might stop in this area. There are three villages that seem to have lodging—guesthouses—and also an airstrip.”
“Good thinking.”
She pointed at the map to a place she’d circled. “This is a village called Kavak…” She pointed to another circled town. “And this is Uruyén. And here is a larger town called Canaima. All three have airstrips, all three are on a river, and all have a view of the tepui.” She added, “There’s no way we can know which, if any, of these villages your witness landed in.”
Maybe he should have gotten Carmen’s cell phone number.
“Unless,” said Taylor, “you thought to get a description of the village.”
She was obviously reminding him that he had not asked Simpson for a description of the barrio houses around the brothel. Well, Scott Brodie never made the same mistake twice, and he told her, “Actually, I did ask.”
“And?”
“Let’s take a look.” Brodie ran a search on the tablet for shots of Canaima, and saw that it was a substantial town of stone and white stucco buildings with a church, which was not what Carmen had described. He then pulled up shots of Uruyén and Kavak, which looked similar to each other—thatched huts in open grassland with the massive tepui in the background. The two villages were only a few miles apart, but there was a difference in the color of the huts—those in Uruyén appeared to be painted a deep umber, and the huts in Kavak were a mustard yellow. Carmen had said yellow.
“Brodie?”
“Well… I’ll bet Carmen could tell us.”
“I thought you asked her.”
“I did… You know, standard operating procedure is to take the witness to the scene—”
“Are you serious?”
No. Horny.
“What did she say to you?”
“Yellow. Yellow huts.”
Taylor looked at the photos on the tablet. “That’s Kavak.” She asked, “Are you sure?”
“She was sure.”
“All right… So Kavak fits all the parameters. Airstrip, view of the tepui, yellow huts, and on a small river. She took a boat upriver. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Did Luis hear all this?”
“He did.”
