Pirate Vishnu (A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery) (3 page)

Chapter 3

I rushed down the stairwell. I could have taken the elevator, but I think better when doing something methodical, like walking down several flights of stairs. 

The letters Anand had written to his brother weren’t in my possession. Nor were they with my family. The letters had been donated to a university library in south India.

The turn of the previous century wasn’t a time when many Indians emigrated to the United States, especially the West Coast. I studied the British East India Company—traders who went
to
India, not the people who left. But Anand’s letters were of historical significance to historians with different research interests from mine. The University of Travancore, which was renamed the University of Kerala after Indian kingdoms became consolidated states, jumped at the chance to keep the letters in their archives. I wasn’t sure if they’d been digitized, but I could find out later tonight. India is twelve-and-a-half hours ahead of California, so I knew I could get in touch with someone at the University of Kerala when I got home that night.

As the echoes of my steps bounced off the walls of the empty stairwell, the feeling nagged at me that there was something very calculated about what Steven Healy had told me. I knew he was withholding information, but
why
?

If there was truly something to find in those letters, surely I’d be able to see it myself when I found them. And who was I kidding—it was entirely possible this phantom treasure didn’t exist. Steven said himself that the X on Anand’s map hadn’t led him to a treasure. Uncle Anand had died tragically in the Great Earthquake of 1906. Period. Steven Healy was simply a man who was used to billing eighty hours a week as a lawyer and was now bored in his retirement. He made up a treasure when he came across an old map in his grandmother’s belongings.

That was the simplest explanation. But was it the right one?

I took slow, deep breaths as I stepped out of the building and walked to the parking lot, trying to calm myself and make up my mind about what to do. I knew what I wanted to do. And it was a bad idea for multiple reasons.

I was aching to see Lane. We met earlier that summer when I needed help researching a piece of centuries-old jewelry from India. He turned out to be much more than a colleague who helped me solve the puzzle of a missing treasure and catch a murderer. I’d fallen for the guy.

We hadn’t seen each other since returning from Scotland. I’d been busy dealing with returning part of the treasure I’d hidden in a safe-deposit box and trying to find out what would happen to the treasure. I’d learned more than I ever wanted to know about government bureaucracy and diplomacy between Britain and India. But that’s not what had stopped me from seeing Lane. Though the media attention hadn’t been overwhelming, it was much more than Lane felt comfortable with. He didn’t want to be associated with the treasure at all, so he’d left Scotland before the authorities got involved. It was already too late. The locals knew about him. They were happy to talk in front of the television cameras. One of the people on the archaeological dig had shared a photo they’d taken with their cell phone—a photo of Lane on the dig.

Lane hadn’t counted on that.

Before he was Lane Peters, art history PhD student who’d returned to graduate school in his thirties, he’d been something far different. Someone who didn’t want to be found.

Lane was worried enough that he didn’t want to have any connection with me until the media attention was gone. I understood—up to a point. Lane and I had become much more than friends over a short, intense period of time. Without him around, I already felt like a piece of my life was missing.

I told myself this puzzling treasure map was enough of a reason to go back on my word and see him, but I knew it was just an excuse. Lane’s background was in art history and antiquities, not deciphering treasure maps. But I needed to talk to someone about Steven Healy’s strange visit, and Lane was who I wanted to see.

I reached my car, but stopped before getting inside. I couldn’t decide where to go. If I went to see Lane now, I’d be breaking my promise and I’d also risk being late.

Neither argument was winning me over.

Taking out my phone, I called Lane. It went straight to voicemail. Great. I threw my messenger bag into the passenger seat of my roadster and headed toward the Bay Bridge to see him.

I doubted Sanjay would be upset if I didn’t arrive on time at the Tandoori Palace. It was Raj, the manager of the restaurant, who’d kill me if I was late.

Sanjay and I played musical sets of sitar and tabla two nights a week at the restaurant. Me on the tabla drums, Sanjay on the sitar. It’s not a real job for either of us. I was a professor of history—I had been for a year now—and Sanjay was a professional magician. Not your average profession, sure, but he was
good
. As The Hindi Houdini, he sells out shows at a winery theater up in the Napa Valley that books him for the spring and summer tourist seasons. He liked the rhyme of “Hindi Houdini” better than the more accurate “Hindu Houdini,” and the title has served him well. He’s become something of a weekend getaway enticement to supplement the entertainment of wine tasting.

Sanjay was meticulous on stage.  I’d never guessed the secrets of his big tricks, and God knows I’d seen them often enough. Playing sitar was how he unwound. It served the same purpose for him that the tabla did for me.

Unfortunately, Sanjay was one of the world’s most mediocre sitar players. But he loved it, and he was the one who got us this gig. Raj had always booked professional musicians to play during busy Friday and Saturday nights, so he liked the idea of having additional weeknight entertainment without the stiff bill. Raj was a smart man; my microphone was the only one with the volume turned up. The rhythmic drumming of the tabla stands on its own, so diners enjoying Chef Juan’s tandoori oven specialties on a Wednesday or Thursday night were serenaded by tabla ragas with the faint sounds of a sitar in the background.

Raj would be livid if I wasn’t there when Sanjay began to play. I told myself he would be equally unhappy if I was so distracted that I screwed up the music. Besides, if traffic wasn’t too bad, I’d still have time to make it to Berkeley and back before I was due at the restaurant.

Any illusion I had about being on time faded as I approached the bridge. It was the start of evening rush hour, and traffic was crawling. How did people commute like this every day? I lived and worked in San Francisco, so the most difficult part of my commute was parking.

Traffic started to flow once lanes had merged onto the bridge, and it didn’t take long to get to Berkeley.

Lane’s apartment was a freestanding in-law unit behind a cute bungalow. Small magnolia trees led the way to the unit. I rang the doorbell and followed up with a knock on the door. No answer.

I peeked in the front window through an opening in the curtains. I hadn’t been to his apartment before, since we’d agreed not to see each other yet, but from the glimpse I caught of the living room, I immediately felt at home. Though the unit was tiny, Lane had made it his own. A bronze-colored reading light was positioned next to an Eames chair. A stack of books was piled high on an antique trunk that served as a coffee table. From where I stood, I couldn’t see if there was any other furniture on the other side of the room. The sliver of wall I could see was covered in framed reproductions of South Asian paintings. I could see why he was an art historian. He had a great eye. I didn’t know enough about art to recognize any of the pieces, but each one was stunning.

The bark of a dog from a nearby house startled me and reminded me I was prying. As I walked back to my car, I felt closer to Lane than ever. He was exactly the man I thought he was. And it made sense that he wasn’t at home. It was late afternoon, so he could still be on campus, hopefully in his graduate student office.

There’s not great parking in downtown Berkeley, but once you’ve lived here a while, you learn the tricks, such as which main drags have nearby residential side streets with just enough space between their driveways for a small car. I squeezed into a spot on a street lined with student apartments.

I felt my palms grow sweaty as I walked through the building on my way to Lane’s office. His door was slightly ajar, and it opened wider as I knocked.

It had only been a little over a week since I’d seen him, and it felt simultaneously like it had been ages and that I’d never left his side.

Lane looked the same as he had that last time I’d seen him. Dark blond, wavy hair falling over his face, tortoiseshell glasses hiding his prominent features, which I had learned was a purposeful decision made not for style but to hide his appearance. His tall figure was dressed casually in jeans and an untucked dress shirt. The sight of him still made my stomach do a little lurch. All right. A big lurch.

When our eyes met, I could tell he felt the same. His eyes lit up and his lips formed a smile as he spotted me. But the expression only lasted a second. It was quickly replaced with something I couldn’t gauge. It was as if he’d put on a mask.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he said. “We agreed—”

“I know there were a few news stories,” I said, stepping into the cramped office, “but I haven’t had any reporters contact me in days.”

Lane’s fingers tensed around a book he was holding. I noticed, then, that he was putting books into a box on his desk.

“Cleaning up,” he said, setting the book into the box. He was always good at reading my expression. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“I’ll hide under the desk if the paparazzi catch up to me,” I joked. Lane didn’t laugh. He didn’t make a move from where he stood behind his desk either. I hadn’t exactly expected him to rush around the desk and sweep me up in his arms. Okay, maybe I thought it was a possibility.

“Jones,” he said, unable to hide the tenderness in his voice when he called me that. “We need to talk.”

“That’s why I’m here,” I said, wondering how the simple use of a name could affect me so much. “I’ve missed you, and I—”

“That’s what we need to talk about.”

“Do you want to come to dinner at the restaurant tonight?” I asked. “While I drive, I can tell you about the crazy thing that happened to me.”

Lane’s shoulders tensed. “Is everything all right?”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“You’re okay?” he asked. His eyes searched mine, full of concern.

“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You said something crazy had happened.”

I pulled the Tamil treasure map from my bag and held it up for him to see. “An amateur treasure hunter found me.”

Instead of relaxing, Lane’s body tensed even more. His jaw was set so firmly that I wouldn’t have been surprised if it snapped. “Who?” he asked.

This wasn’t at all how I thought the conversation would go. And why had he asked like he might already know the answer?

“Steven Healy,” I said. “A retired lawyer. He came to see me this afternoon. Said he found this in his grandmother’s possessions that she left him. He said—”

“Oh,” Lane said, his shoulders relaxing. “Then it wasn’t… Never mind.”

“What’s going on with you, Lane? I thought you’d want to know—”

“You thought wrong.”

I stared at him, confusion replaced by anger. “I get it that the media attention we got wasn’t the best—”

“When we were in Scotland,” Lane said, “it wasn’t real life. Now that I’m back, I’ve realized that.”

“Life is always complicated,” I said, trying not to shout. “If you’re trying to break up with me, that’s a pretty lame excuse.”

Lane glared at me but didn’t speak for a few moments. Finally he shook his head and looked away. “You don’t understand.”

“Then why don’t you explain it to me?”

Lane crossed his arms and looked up to the low ceiling of the cramped office. “I’m really busy,” he said. “I’m sorry you thought things would work out differently.” He looked down from the ceiling, but busied himself with the box in front of him, refusing to look at me.

Only when it became clear I wasn’t leaving did he meet my gaze. A flash of tenderness crossed his face, but he shook it off so quickly that I thought I had imagined it.

“I’m sorry, Jaya,” he said, while my head spun with confusion at the disjuncture between his actions and his words. “We’re done.”

Chapter 4

I made my way back to my car, blinking back tears and hating myself for letting them form in the first place. I paused at a street corner off Telegraph Avenue, trying to remember where I’d parked.

“You okay?” asked a gaunt homeless man sitting on the sidewalk. He held a cardboard sign asking for spare change in exchange for art. Half a dozen beautiful postcard-size line drawings of Berkeley street scenes were spread out next to him.

“Only if you can tell me that everything that happened today has been a dream,” I said, “and I’m about to wake up.”

“I hear ya, sister. That’s been my day every day for the last six years.”

I took one of his drawings of Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza and bought him a sandwich from a nearby café before returning to my car. I fumbled with my keys as I tried to open the door of my roadster, dropping them in the gutter. Once I managed to get the door open, I sat in the driver’s seat before starting the car. My hands shook on the steering wheel. I hated that Lane had that much of an effect on me. I hated that
anyone
had that much of an effect on me.

My stomach rumbled. I should have gotten myself a bag of chips at the café. I’d be fed at the restaurant, but I had no idea how long it would take me to get there. I needed to pull myself together for the drive back to San Francisco. I squeezed the steering wheel. It was as good a stand-in for Lane’s neck as I was going to get.

My hands had stopped shaking, but I was still angry and unfocused. I had planned on looking up someone to contact at the University of Kerala that evening, but I couldn’t imagine being in shape to send a coherent introductory email any time that night, so I did the next best thing. I pulled out my phone to text my friend Tamarind, a librarian at my university’s library.

Tamarind Ortega was amazing. She helped me with a research project shortly after I started my teaching job the previous year, and became one of my few good friends. She’d be able to maneuver the University of Kerala’s website and find a librarian to contact about Anand’s letters. I sent her a text message asking if she could help, then immediately followed up with a second message explaining why I needed to get started that night.

There was nothing else to do. I was as calm as I was going to get. I started the car and headed to the Tandoori Palace.

I wasn’t as late as I feared I might be. By the time I pulled into a parking spot a block away from the restaurant, I was only five minutes late for our first scheduled set. I hoisted my tabla case out of the trunk and hurried down Lincoln, the road that runs along the south side of Golden Gate Park. Taking my phone out to make sure the sound was off, I saw that Tamarind had already texted me back: 
I’m on it!

“Jaya!” Raj called out as I stepped through the back entrance. “You like to give an old man a heart attack!” He mopped his bald head with a handkerchief, even though there wasn’t a drop of sweat anywhere on his head.

Sanjay stepped up behind Raj, putting one hand on the restaurateur’s shoulder and flipping his bowler hat onto his head with the other. I swear that hat was his security blanket. A security blanket he could pull a rabbit out of. Sanjay shunned the traditional magician’s top hat, but I never saw him without his bowler.

“I told him I could cover for you,” Sanjay said, “but he was worried.”

Raj gave me a conspiratorial grin. “You are so small, Jaya. I hate to think of you at an unknown location after dark.”

He thought nothing of the sort. Both Raj and Sanjay knew I could take care of myself. In one of my father’s rare moments of clarity, once he saw I wasn’t going to make it to five feet tall, he insisted on enrolling me in every martial arts class he could find.

“What’s the matter?” Sanjay asked, offering me his elbow. He knew better than to offer to carry my tabla case.

“Nothing,” I said with a shake of my head. I wasn’t ready to talk about everything that had happened that day.

I left my shoes at the edge of the small stage. Tucking my feet under me on the carpeted stage floor, I focused my attention on the two goatskin drums that make up the tabla. I ran my fingertips around the rim of the taut material as Sanjay got situated with his sitar. In spite of his graceful movements as a magician, the long-necked sitar was an unwieldy instrument in his hands.

I immersed myself in the music. If I didn’t force myself to focus, I’d be playing as badly as Sanjay, and driving myself crazy thinking about Steven Healy, Uncle Anand, and Lane Peters. Fortunately, focusing completely on what I’m doing was something I excelled at. It doesn’t always make for the most balanced life, but it’s great for situations like this. For the next half hour, I was lost in the music, not lost in my life.

After we finished our first set, I turned off our mics, took a deep breath, and turned to Sanjay. “We have to talk.”

Sanjay frowned as I led him toward the room in back of the kitchen. I wasn’t sure why. It’s not like we were dating or anything. And his ego certainly would never allow him to think he’d played a less than stellar set.

For the first time that evening I didn’t feel completely miserable. Confused, yes. But no longer completely lost. One of the great things about being able to focus so completely is that it lets your subconscious have time to go to work. I was ready to talk to someone. My best friend was in front of me. Sanjay could help me think through what was going on.

“I’ve got a magic trick for you,” I said. “How is it possible that a boat builder born in India in the late 1800s drew a treasure map of San Francisco with clues written in Tamil, and nobody has managed to decipher the map in over a hundred years?”

Okay, I wasn’t ready to talk about Lane yet. But Sanjay could help me with the riddle of Uncle Anand and his map.