Cool Cache (14 page)

All the way home, I kept checking my rearview mirror, but saw no evidence I was being followed. I picked up Muldoon from Mrs. D’s place and took Helen’s collectibles out of the trunk of my car. She claimed the items weren’t valuable, but I didn’t want to be held responsible if anything was stolen.

Once the pup and I were inside the house, I spread the collectibles on the bed in the spare room to have a look. Muldoon jumped up and began sniffing like crazy at the heart box. No wonder. It smelled of chocolate, as if somebody had used it in recent days.

I looked him square in the eye. “Chocolate is bad for dogs. You’re a dog. Enough said.”

Muldoon is a terrier, so it took at least three more admonitions before he resigned himself to watching from the floor as I inspected the chocolate tins. There were five in all. All were old. Most were battered. None of the brand names were familiar to me. The companies must have gone out of business long ago. They were all empty, except for one. As I turned it over, a piece of paper fell out. It was brown and flaky with age. As I reached to pick it up, it disintegrated in my fingers. I put the fragments together. It looked like some sort of price tag.

The spouted chocolate pot was shaped like an hourglass: wide at the mouth, narrow in the middle, and seven or eight inches at the bottom. It had a half-moon handle, a long thin spout, and was about ten inches high from the bottom to the top. It reminded me of an old-fashioned spittoon. It appeared to be made of metal that had corroded, obscuring the graphics. It wasn’t until I tapped my knuckles on the rough surface that I realized the material was ceramic. The pot might have been a replica, but the artist had done an impressive job of making it look old.

I thought about the man I saw standing in the shadows near my car when I left work. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find it, which meant he was still out there, watching and waiting. I shook off a chill and shoved the collectibles under the bed. It wasn’t the most creative hiding spot, but it would have to do until I found someplace better.

Before I went to bed, I checked my answering machine for messages. Pookie had called from the woo-woo retreat in Big Sur where she’d gone for a little R&R with her husband, Bruce. Pookie Kravitz isn’t my mother’s real name. She changed it early in her acting career because she thought it had more pizzazz than Mary Jo Felder Sinclair. She’s never felt comfortable with Mom, either, so that’s why I’ve always called her Pookie.

A few months back, she’d given up her acting career to help Bruce realize a lifelong dream to open a yoga studio they’d named Kismet. Her call was to let me know they were coming back from the retreat early because of some developing problems at the studio. That worried me. It wasn’t good for her or the marriage if his dream turned into a nightmare.

There was a second message that had come in around noon. I pressed the Play button and waited. At first I thought it was a hang-up because nobody spoke. Then I heard a whispered voice.

“Tucker, it’s me. I can’t talk. I’m deep undercover. Don’t worry. I’m okay. I’m making progress, but there’s still work to do. And I have to do it alone.”

It was Eugene’s voice. I felt cold and hyperalert, the way I always feel when my imagination runs wild. I couldn’t be sure what had driven him “deep undercover,” but there were four possibilities: he was investigating the missing chocolates from Nectar, the threatening telephone calls to Helen, the break-in at her condo, or the last and worst alternative, the murder of Lupe Ortiz.

All of those events might be related, but I couldn’t be sure. For the moment, I’d have to consider them as separate crimes and follow the available leads, starting with Professor Osteen. I still hadn’t been able to reach him by telephone, so in the morning I planned to drive to Montecito and talk to him in person. I had to find Eugene before he got himself into serious trouble.

Chapter 16

The following morning, Professor Osteen still wasn’t answering the telephone in his hotel room. I dropped Muldoon off at what was fast becoming the Domanskis’ Pet Spa and Day Care Center and headed to Montecito.

The inn was on a two-lane street separated by a narrow greenbelt dotted with fragrant eucalyptus and lush vegetation. The street was congested with joggers and cyclists, mostly men who looked as if they had retired at fifty.

I pulled into an angle-in parking spot a block away. As I got out of the car, a strong Santa Ana wind stirred up the scent of rosemary from the greenbelt and carnations from a nearby vendor’s cart. I made my way past a real estate office advertising a Tuscan Village, a Fine Southern Plantation, an Elegant Cape Cod, and an estate described only as Equestrian Elegance. In Montecito, anything was possible.

The inn was a three-story mission-style building with arched windows. Flowers and vines spilled from green window boxes. A fire burned in the lobby fireplace. I glanced down the narrow hallway, hoping to find somebody who looked professorial, but all I saw were the red marble treads and wrought iron handrails on the staircase leading to the second floor. The ambiance reminded me of a bygone era, where grandiose was still spelled with a small “g.”

Near the antique elevator was a statue of Charlie Chaplin, one of the hotel’s early investors. He was sporting heavy eye makeup and leaning on a cane, wearing his famous Tramp costume—oversized clown shoes, baggy pants, and a bowler hat too small for his head.

I made my way over the brown and beige floral carpet to the desk clerk, a clean-cut young man who had the look of a student working his way through college. I asked him to ring Professor Osteen’s room.

“He’s expecting me,” I said.

The desk clerk dialed a number and waited. “No answer.”

“Any idea where he might be?”

He shrugged. “There’s a swimming pool out back. He might be there. If not, check the bar on the other side of the driveway.”

Osteen wasn’t at the pool. I was walking toward the bar when I noticed a man in his seventies standing by the window, holding a coffee mug. Age had bowed his back and jutted his hips forward, making his body S-shaped. He was thin, almost gaunt. Wisps of long white hair fluttered over his brow as he leaned over a tall stack of paper on the table next to him. I walked inside and glanced at the top page. It was scrawled with red markings. It looked like a book manuscript to me.

“Professor Osteen?”

The man squinted as if that might help jog his memory. “Do I know you?”

“My name is Tucker Sinclair. Your wife may have called about me.”

He paused as if thinking. “Yes. Something about your assistant. All I can tell you is we talked on the telephone.”

I felt a rush of hope. “When did he call?”

Osteen ambled over to a coffee thermos sitting on the bar and picked up a cup. “Sunday evening, I believe. It’s so hard to keep track of time when I’m writing.”

“Did he say what he wanted?”

Over his shoulder he said, “Why don’t you ask him?”

“He didn’t show up for work today.”

Osteen pumped the plunger on the thermos. Coffee gushed into the cup in spurts. “That’s none of my concern. I don’t want to get involved in your personnel issues.”

“I need your help. I’m afraid Eugene is in some kind of trouble. You may have been the last person he spoke to.”

Osteen didn’t respond right away. He took his coffee to the table and sat in the chair next to the manuscript. I followed him. He studied my expression, as if looking for some sign of worthiness. A moment later he gestured for me to join him. As I pulled up a chair and sat down, he shoved his manuscript aside like a man needing a reprieve from all that paper and red ink. I guess isolation sounds better in theory than it does in practice.

“He asked about two topics that are of interest to me, chocolate and quetzals. He was mistaken in his thinking about the Maya. I had to correct him. They were not the first to process the pod of the
Theobroma cacao
tree. That discovery is credited to the Olmec civilization, around fifteen hundred years before Christ. I explained to him that chocolate back then was nothing like what you find today in heart-shaped boxes on Valentine’s Day. It was liquid poured from a pitcher held from a height of three or four feet, so it entered the cup thick and frothy. It was often spiked with unusual flavorings like hot chili peppers.”

“I’ve seen a replica of one of those pots,” I said, “but I didn’t know how they were used. What got you so interested in the Maya?”

He cupped his hands as if they contained secrets from the ages. “I lived in Belize as a child. My father was a diplomat. He immersed my brother and me in the culture. We attended local schools. We didn’t learn Quiché, which is the language spoken by many of the Maya, but we did learn Spanish. The Mayan ruins captivated me. I went there every chance I got. Their civilization was highly advanced. They were the first to come up with the concept of zero. Imagine that! They had the only developed language in the pre-Columbian Americas. At their pinnacle, the Maya were one of the most culturally advanced peoples of the ancient world.”

I described the feather I’d found near Lupe Ortiz’s body and asked him what he could tell me about it.

“Your assistant asked about that, too. I told him it sounded like the tail feather from a
Pharomachrus mocinno,
also known as the Resplendent Quetzal.”

“Does the bird still exist or is it extinct?” I said.

“The official term is
near threatened
. That means the bird may be threatened with extinction in the near future.”

“From what?”

“Myriad causes,” he said, “all man-made, I’m sorry to say. Development. Pollution. Global warming. They’re destroying habitat and forcing many species of birds to move north into new territories. Some can adapt, but the quetzal is already at risk. They are not good fliers, which makes them vulnerable to predators. In some areas, quetzal chicks are being attacked by species moving to the cloud forests to escape the heat. If the earth continues to grow warmer as predicted, we will see mass extinctions in the next hundred years. Entire ecosystems will disappear.”

“What were the quetzal feathers used for?”

He used the table to push himself upright and then strolled to the counter to top off his coffee. “In the Mayan culture, the bird was considered sacred and its feathers highly prized. They were used in royal headdresses, capes, and fans. Unfortunately, no artifacts survived, and feather work is now a lost art. We only know about the quetzal’s place in Mayan society from drawings left behind on glyphs and monuments.”

“Do you have any idea how a person could gain access to these feathers? I understand the birds can’t live in captivity.”

He walked back to the table, dribbling a trail of brown liquid on the floor. “That’s what the Maya believed. To them, the quetzal was a symbol of freedom. Alas, the myth isn’t true. There’s a zoo in Mexico that has kept birds in captivity since the early nineties. Several years ago, they started an active breeding program, which has shown some promise.”

“Where is this zoo located?” I said.

He set the cup on his manuscript, oblivious to the ring of brown coffee seeping into the paper. “In Chiapas. It’s called the Miguel Alvarez del Toro Regional Zoo.”

If the zoo had a quetzal-breeding program, it meant there were birds that got old and died or maybe just molted their feathers. Someone who worked in that program or visited the zoo might have access to one, perhaps even the one I found near Lupe Ortiz’s body.

“Have you ever heard of the MayaBoyz?” I said.

“Sounds like a rock band.” He chuckled at his joke.

“It’s a street gang. Most of its members are from Central America. Their symbol is a quetzal feather. You said the bird was sacred to the ancient Maya. Do you have any idea what it might mean to an East L.A. gangbanger?”

Osteen drummed his fingers on the manuscript as if that might help him think. His hands were dotted with age spots and his knuckles seemed swollen. “The quetzal is still important in the Guatemalan culture. Its image is on the national flag, and the country’s currency is named after it. As far as what the bird might mean to a street gang, I suppose you could say its mythology has a kinship with violence. There’s an ancient fable that claims the Resplendent Quetzal was a
nahual,
a spirit guide or guardian angel to the warrior-prince Tecún Umán. It is said that the bird got his red breast from Tecún’s wounds in a battle against the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado.”

“So a modern-day gangbanger might think the feather was his
nahual
against rival street gangs or even against his own homeboys?”

“It has a certain poetry to it, wouldn’t you say? An ancient and sacred symbol of your people, watching over you, protecting you from violent death?”

Osteen was right. The story was poetic. Too bad there had been no
nahual
protecting Lupe Ortiz.

“Did Eugene mention where he might be going next?”

As Osteen lifted his cup once more, he noticed the stain on his manuscript. He tried to wipe it off, but it was too late. The coffee had already spoiled the page.

“He didn’t say. He seemed quite interested in the history of the Mayan spouted chocolate pot, so I told him about an exhibit called ‘Chocolate: The History.’ It’s showing at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. They had such success with the Field Museum chocolate exhibition a few years back they brought in this smaller show. I told your friend to ask for Marianne Rogers if he wanted to know more about chocolate pots. She’s an expert.”

I didn’t know why Eugene had been so interested in Mayan spouted chocolate pots, but it was more than a coincidence that I had a replica of one hidden in my spare bedroom. I thanked Osteen for his help and hurried back to my car. I planned to make a brief stop at my house to pick up the pot before dropping in on Marianne Rogers.