01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (4 page)

I showered, then answered the tap at the door. It was Isa bringing the
sopa,
fresh cheese, and crisp tortillas. After setting out the meal on a side table by the window, she pulled up a chair, saying, “Okay, tell me everything.”

I laughed with relief. It was just like old times. I told her what had happened.

“We’ve been watching it on television,” she said. “A group calling itself Children of the Talking Cross has claimed responsibility, saying it will be returning the statue to its rightful owners, the Maya.”

“This Children of the Talking Cross—is this a, well… a mainstream terrorist group or something? I’ve never heard of them.”

“No one has, as far as I know,” Isa replied. “I certainly haven’t.”

“Did they identify the statue?” I asked, thinking of Jonathan and Lucas.

“Yes, there were two archaeologists—were they your friends?—right on the scene. They said it was a carving of the feathered serpent god, Itzamna.”

After Isa had cleared away the dishes and gone downstairs to join her family, I climbed gratefully into bed.

Despite my fatigue, sleep did not come easily. I found myself on the horns of a dilemma. I was guilty of a rather major error of omission in my report to Isa. The big question was should I tell Isa that despite the mask I had recognized Alejandro in the Ek Balam? Should I tell him? Should I tell the federal police? I remembered my impression of the policeman. On that score at least, I rather thought not.

Along time ago I had a boyfriend who described everyone he knew as a car. The worst thing he could think to say about someone was that they were an economy van.

I was, he told me, a ‘56 Thunderbird convertible. Not being much into cars, vintage or otherwise, I wasn’t sure what that meant. One day, a couple of years after we parted company, I saw one, silver, on a revolving platform at a classic car show. Maybe he had liked me more than I realized.

Anyway, while I can barely remember what this guy looked like, he has left me with this particular way of categorizing people. Isa, for example, is the kind of car she drives. Elegant and snappy, a Mercedes 580SL convertible.

Jonathan? A British racing green Rover, leather upholstery. Refined, expensive in an understated way, and maybe just a little pretentious.

Lucas? I wasn’t sure about him just yet. But whatever the model, the color would have to be black.

Waiting at the reception desk as I went downstairs the next morning to scrounge a cup of coffee was the person I had already come to think of as a Mack truck. The kind that roars up on your bumper so only the silver grille, like rows of sharks teeth, shows in your rearview mirror. Convinced that any moment you will be squashed like some insignificant bug on its front bumper, your relief is palpable when eventually it roars past, causing your car to jerk and lurch in its wake.

It was the investigating officer, one Major Ignacio Martinez, I had learned the previous night. Clearly this was a man who shot first and asked questions later, who made up his mind about the guilty party very early in an investigation, then went to great lengths to prove it, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

And the person he had decided was guilty of stealing the statue of Itzamna, I was soon to learn, was Dr. Hernan Castillo.

I had awakened late. The day was gloomy, fitting for Akbal, a day of evil and darkness. I had not arrived at any resolution of my dilemma of the night before, but when I saw Martinez standing at the reception desk, I thought my problem had been solved, though in the worst possible way.

But Martinez was not looking for Alejandro, he was looking for me. And it was Don Hernan he wanted to talk about.

We went into a small sitting room off the lobby.

“What brought you to Mexico, senora?” he began.

“I’m on a break from my studies, a holiday.”

“What made you choose Merida as your destination?”

“I’m studying Maya history and languages,” I replied.

There was a pause.

“I think you are not being entirely, shall we say, comprehensive, in your answers to my questions. Now, why would that be?”

“Perhaps you are not asking the right questions,” I snapped. “What exactly is it you want to know?”

“I want to know the whereabouts of Dr. Hernan Castillo, and I believe you have the answer,” he said.

Whereabouts? This man watches too many movies! I thought.

“What in heaven’s name does Dr. Castillo have to do with this? Surely you cannot think he has anything to do with the robbery. He’s a well-respected scholar.”

“I believe I am the one authorized to ask the questions, senora, not you. Do I think he walked into the bar and took the statue personally? No, I do not. But yes, I do think he is involved. He and Senor Gomez Arias had an argument over the stolen sculpture, in fact only a few weeks ago.”

“I don’t know where he is,” I replied. “I do know that he would not have anything to do with something as shabby as this.”

He ignored the last comment. “But you did come to Merida to meet him, did you not?” Obviously either Jonathan or Lucas had been more “comprehensive” in his testimony than I had been.

“Yes, but he canceled our first meeting, dinner the evening before last. I have not heard from him since.”

“And the reason for his bad manners?”

“Bad manners?”

“Canceling dinner with a lovely foreign visitor whom you have invited to visit would not normally be considered good manners, would it, even in Canada?”

I ignored the gibe.

“What were you meeting him for? Perhaps to carry some stolen merchandise out of the country for him? I understand you have a fair knowledge of the import/export business.”

“I really do not know what he wanted to talk to me about. It really was just an excuse to get away from my studies and the Canadian winter,” I replied. My reply, though true, sounded questionable even to me. And no doubt I looked a little long in the tooth to be a student.

Another lengthy pause. Perhaps this is a technique I thought: wait long enough and the person will bleat something.

“May I see your passport, please?”

A new approach. I handed it to him, then watched in dismay as he slipped it into his jacket pocket and rose from his chair.

“You can’t take that!” I sputtered.

“Ah yes, but I can. Do not, as they say in your American movies, leave town, senora.”

Then he was gone, leaving me with the satisfaction, albeit minimal, of being right about the movies.

My first reaction was to try to reach my father to see what he and his diplomatic connections could do for me here. It’s amazing how no matter how old we get, we still turn to our parents in a pinch. However, now that my father was retired, my parents, their wanderlust still unsated, were always traipsing off somewhere, usually somewhere obscure. Currently, if I remembered correctly, they were on the slow train for Ulan Bator.

Instead, I went looking for Don Santiago. After expressing his outrage in decidedly undiplomatic language, he propelled himself over to a telephone and began phoning some old acquaintances in the diplomatic corps.

As I left the sitting room I passed Alejandro at the front desk.

“You and I need to talk, Alejandro,” I hissed on the way by.

He looked nonplussed for a brief moment, but then merely smiled and nodded. This was one composed young man.

“Meet me at the Cafe Escobar, in an hour,” I said, naming a small restaurant just a couple of blocks from the hotel.

Reasonably calmed by my brief conversation with Santiago Ortiz, and his promise to try to fix the mess with the passport, I went into the kitchen to get some coffee. Isa and her mother were sitting at the big oak table having a companionable cup of coffee together. Don Santiago soon joined us. I told them about my day so far, then inquired about Don Hernan.

“Still not back, and we haven’t heard from him either. We’re getting worried,” Francesca said.

“This would hardly be the first time he has disappeared on us,” Santiago observed.

“Yes, but he usually calls,” Francesca countered.

“I went to his office yesterday. It was locked up tight. I’d hoped he’d be there, or if not, I was hoping to get in to take a look around to see if there might be clues as to where he might be.”

The Ortizes exchanged a glance, and Francesca rose from her seat.

Santiago said, “We have a key—Don Hernan was always misplacing his, so he left a spare with us. Francesca will get it for you. I’m sure Don Hernan would not mind.”

As I was about to leave them a few minutes later, key in hand, a bell rang in the kitchen. The Casa de las Buganvillas still has the features of a gracious home of a bygone era, including a kind of upstairs/downstairs bell system where the aristocrat upstairs pulls a cord in the room and a bell rings down in the kitchen. This summons staff to receive commands, go back downstairs to act upon them, and then return upstairs with the task completed.

Most hotel guests, of course, simply telephoned the front desk when they wished something.

“I thought that system had been disconnected years ago,” I said.

“It has”—Isa sighed—“except for the Empress.”

Francesca rose from her chair to answer the bell in person.

“The Empress?” I asked.

“Senora Josefina Ramirez de Leon Tinoco,” Isa replied. “She treats my family as if they were her personal servants!”

I don’t pretend to understand the Mexican naming system, but I get the general idea that the longer your name, the higher your station in life. This name should put Dona Josefina pretty close to royalty, maybe just this side of God. Clearly she had never felt the need to learn to use the telephone.

“Does she wear a mantilla?” I asked.

“Always.” Isa smiled.

And with that I left them.

Shortly thereafter I made my way to the Cafe Escobar. I had no idea whether Alejandro would show up or not.

The cafe was far from fancy, lots of Formica and what my neighbor Alex likes to call “little junks”—dangling Day of the Dead skulls and the like. But the food was good and plentiful and one wall had a Diego Rivera-like mural that appealed very much to students and aging dissidents. I thought it would be a place where Alejandro would feel comfortable.

As I waited for him I tried to calm myself. I had had nothing to eat yet and it was already well past noon, which didn’t help any. I’d consumed several cups of very strong black coffee, and with this and the events of the day, I was almost dizzy with caffeine, adrenaline, and anxiety.

I ordered chicken
chilaquiles,
a casserole of tortillas, shredded chicken,
tomatillos,
chilis, cream, and cheese. To wash it down, a Dos XX beer. If he didn’t show up, at least I’d have had lunch. I sat in a small banquette against the wall, watching the door, mentally plotting my approach to the subject.

Show up he did. Bold as brass.

He slid into me booth opposite me and quickly ordered a beer for himself. He was obviously well known here: he didn’t have to tell them which brand.

“You wanted to talk to me about something?” He smiled.

This was a very self-possessed young man. I had to remind myself that he was only about half my age.

“Yes I do, Alejandro. About a robbery. In a bar. A robbery at which, as it turns out, I was present.”

His expression did not change.

“Not only present,” I continued, “but in which I am implicated.”

“Implicated?” He looked surprised.

“Yes. In more ways than one. The police believe I have information that would lead them to the perpetrator.”

Now I thought I was beginning to get through to him, judging by the way he kept nervously twirling the coaster on the table.

“I could, in fact, should I choose to, lead them to one of the perpetrators. Ironically, however, it is not the person they are looking for.”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” he said, but he looked a little uneasy now.

“Would it interest you to know that the police suspect Dr. Castillo of masterminding the whole event? And that he is now the object of search of that rather ruthless Major Martinez?”

A slight flicker of emotion, apprehension perhaps, crossed his face.

“I cannot imagine why they would do that,” was all he said. But I had struck a nerve.

“Tell me, just who are these Children of the Talking Cross?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he said.

“Oh, I think you do, Alejandro. Why would these people, whoever they are, steal a statue of Itzamna and not the others?”

“Perhaps some political reasons you wouldn’t understand,” he said slowly.

“Or perhaps they are just a bunch of young hoodlums defying their parents, and making a nuisance of themselves, drawing innocent people in as they go!”

He gave me a look that I could not interpret, tossed a few coins on the table to pay for his beer, and hurried from the restaurant.

Well, that was brilliant! I told myself. He knows all you know, and you know nothing more than you did before. Furthermore he’ll never tell you what he knows because now he is convinced you’re a nasty old cow!

I paid for my meal and grabbed a taxi for the
museo.
I made the driver stop about a block away, and walked the rest of the way.

I paid my admission, made a pretense for a few minutes of looking at the exhibits, then, as I had the day before, ducked through the door on the top floor marked
prohibido entrar
and very quietly let myself into Don Hernan’s office, carefully locking the door behind me. I did not want to be surprised by anyone, least of all Major Martinez.

Despite the fact that he was well past retirement age, the museum board of governors had let Don Hernan keep his little office in recognition of his contribution to Maya studies in general, and his generosity to the museum in particular. Many of the exhibits on the floors below would not have been possible without his donations.

It wasn’t much of an office really, just a dark little cubbyhole at the end of a long hallway on the top floor. The little room still reeked of the cigars he indulged in, and I very quietly unlocked the window and opened it a few inches to allow in some air.