01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (14 page)

“Not to actually kill someone, of course,” he added quickly, “but do you understand what I am saying?”

“I think I do,” I agreed. “Is there a Maya equivalent of the Gutenberg Bible?”

“There might be, I suppose. We never value our own culture, perhaps. But the Books of the Chilam Balam, for example. These are books in the Roman alphabet that are considered to have ritualistic importance for the Maya. One of the them, the Chilam Balam of Tusik—they’re named after the places they are located in—vanished in the 1970s. The owner/guardian is said to have died under circumstances some consider to be suspicious.”

“Interesting idea,” I said. “I’d like to research this with your help.”

He smiled. “You know our hours. I’ll help all I can.”

He suddenly looked at his watch and exclaimed, “My goodness. It’s so late. I have to attend the reading of Don Hernan’s will this afternoon!”

“So do I,” I said. “Shall we go together?”

I paid the bill, and we shared a companionable cab to the solicitor’s office. As we went we were both deep in our own thoughts. I was thinking how comfortable I felt with this nervous little man, how I’d told him things I had told no one else. Not Isa. Not even Jonathan, with whom I was reasonably sure I was heading for bed.

What did this say about my relationships? I wondered. It was a thought I was not prepared to pursue with any diligence at that moment.

We arrived at the offices of Rudolfo Alvarez a little late. The Ortiz family was already there, as was, to my surprise, Sheila Stratton Gomez. I found I was glad to see her. There were also a few people I didn’t know. Antonio whispered that one of them, a tall distinguished gentleman, was the treasurer of the
museo.

Alvarez, a dry stick of a man, began to read the will the minute Antonio and I were seated.

There was the usual stuff about being of sound mind and so on, and then we got to the heart of the matter.

Which was, if I may summarize, that the artifacts that the
museo
had on loan from Don Hernan were to become part of its permanent collection. This caused the shoulders of the treasurer to relax. He’d obviously been worrying about losing a good part of the museum’s collection.

There were to be exceptions. The shoulders of the treasurer rose again. Don Hernan’s collection of first editions was to become the property of Santiago Ortiz Menendez and, after his death, of Norberto Ortiz.

There was an exception to that one, too. The first editions of John Lloyd Stephens’s
Incidents of Travel,
some of my favorite books, were to go to
Lara McClintoch, my friend and colleague, whose love of the civilization of the Maya may yet equal my own.
I was quite overwhelmed by this, and even more determined to see that justice be done.

Next to the personal effects. Francesca, Isa, and Manuela Ortiz were all left lovely old pieces of jewelry that belonged to Don Hernan’s family. Sheila Gomez was left the watch that was with Don Hernan’s remains. Dona Josefina, semiconscious in the hospital, was to receive his mother’s wedding ring, a sapphire-and-diamond piece that his wife had also worn.

The bulk of the money in Don Hernan’s estate was to go to a local hospital run by the nuns, where in a sad coincidence Dona Josefina now lay. An annual stipend, however, was to go to Antonio Valesquez. Antonio looked close to tears.

One item was left. Alvarez intoned, “To my young friend Alejandro Ortiz, I leave one of my most treasured possessions, a statue of a Maya ballplayer. To play the game well is to ensure that the cycles of the earth will continue. I pray this knowledge will set his feet on the right path, and give him the peace he craves and deserves.”

Alejandro burst into tears and fled the room, leaving his family sitting in bewilderment.

That ended the reading of the last will and testament of Senor Dr. Hernan Castillo Rivas. Alvarez invited everyone for a glass of port, and then we all filed out of his office, deep in our own thoughts.

This did not appear to be a will to kill over. The bulk of the estate went to institutions, the
museo
and the hospital. The jewelry and books had some commercial value, certainly, but their worth, to this group at least, would be primarily sentimental. The money Antonio Valesquez was to receive would help him, but he hadn’t needed to kill to get it. Don Hernan had been helping him financially all along.

I remained totally in the dark.

i wait for night to fall, so that once again I am at ease with the light, or rather its absence. My senses, carefully tamped down by day to protect my ragged psyche, can now expand, and every action, sight, and sound has a clarity that is almost frightening. I feel as if I am in a dream, but know that I am not. Instead everything has such an immediacy that I feel compelled to do now what I have been dreading.

I leave the others at the inn, and head for the hospital where Dona Josefina lies.

I move quietly down dark and silent whitewashed corridors, the only sounds the soft whirring of fans and the distant murmurs of a late service in the chapel. Built like a Spanish cloister, the hospital has crucifixes everywhere. I wonder if Dona Josephina is religious, or if she gave up on God a long time ago.

I find her room, directed by a placid sister. I wonder if the sisters know that Dona Josefina was once a courtesan and whether or not it matters in their eyes, if not God’s.

The room is dimly lit, but I see her very well. She lies there, one eye closed, the other drooping half-shut. A useless hand is curled up in a spasm, the other clenches and unclenches, clutching at the sheet in what I imagine to be intense frustration and despair.

I go to the bedside. In a low whisper, I begin to talk to her. I tell her that I am the fair-haired woman who is a friend of the Ortiz family, and that I sat at the table next to her in the hotel several nights ago.

I tell her I am sorry we did not have a chance to speak, that I have heard something of her story from Francesca Ortiz, and that I wish we could talk about her life and mine.

I tell her how I came to Merida on the strength of a phone call from Hernan Castillo, and that now that he is dead, I am obsessed with finding what he was looking for, and for bringing to justice the evil person who killed him.

I tell her that I know there is no reason on earth that she should believe what I say, but that nonetheless I need her help.

“I don’t know whether you can hear me, or understand me, but if you can,” I say, taking her good hand, “will you try to tell me? Press one for yes, two for no.”

I feel her squeeze my hand very faintly.

One for yes.

“Did he really tell you what he was looking for?” I ask.

One for yes.

“I know you can’t tell me what it is. But is it a book?” I ask again.

One for yes.

“Is it a rare book?”

One for yes.

“One of the Chilam Balam books?” I ask, thinking of Antonio’s comments.

Two for no.

“But a book of the Maya.”

One for yes.

“
Gracias
,” I tell her.

The sister comes to the door.

“You must leave her,” she says. “She must rest.”

I turn to go, then turn back again.

“Don Hernan’s will was read today. He left his mother’s wedding ring to you,” I tell the almost lifeless form.

As I leave I watch a tear form in the corner of her one good eye and run slowly down her cheek. I pat her hand.

“I promise to come back,” is all I can think to say.

It is so little.

CHUEN

The embossed vellum envelope and its contents
informed me that the pleasure of my company at dinner that evening was requested by Senor Diego Maria Gomez Arias, and Sheila Stratton Gomez.

Obviously invitations to the Gomez residence were in such demand that no one minded being invited at the last minute. To be fair, I suppose, I should point out that had I left and entered the hotel by the front door like everyone else, I would have seen the invitation when it arrived the night before—delivered, I was informed, by limo and driver.

As it was, I had gone on one of my nocturnal journeys through Merida, to Dona Josefina’s bedside, and someone had therefore slid the invitation under my door during the night.

Late invitation or not, I had nothing planned for the evening, and I still wanted to meet Don Diego and have a conversation with him about Don Hernan. And anyway, it was Chuen, day of the monkey, the creature who in Maya mythology is the artist, and therefore an appropriate one on which to meet Don Diego, collector and patron of the arts that he was.

It is also supposed to be a good day, a day of knowledge, and I fervently hoped that it would be. The Maya calendar was, I hoped, unfolding as it should. I accepted the invitation with alacrity.

There was one worrisome item in the invitation, however, the words in its lower left-hand corner. Black tie, it said. I had not brought anything with me that would come close to being fancy enough for a black tie event.

I made haste to find Isa, who smiled when she saw the invitation. “Leave it with me,” she said. That sounded like a good idea to me.

I had lots of other things to do. This was Eulalia Gonzalez’s day back at the morgue, and then there was much research to do. I could, of course, do it the hard way, which was to go to the
museo
library, and plow through rows of neat little index cards and piles of books.

But I had a better idea.

First I headed for the Cafe Escobar. I scanned the room for Alejandro, but he was not there. Isa had told me that he had taken to his room after the reading of the will and could not be enticed down for dinner. Francesca had left a tray of food outside his door, and while he had had something, much of it had remained uneaten. He might still be there for all I knew.

I went to the back hall again, and placed a call to Alex. I’d called Alex from the hotel a couple of times in the last few days, to tell him what was happening down here. I told him about murders and morgues, he told me about the latest antics of my cat. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in all that I was involved in, but I think he probably thought I needed to hear about everyday activities to counteract the events I was encountering.

For this call, though, I didn’t want to use the hotel phone. These were strange times, and I certainly would not put it past Major Martinez to find some way to tap the lines. A pay phone, albeit in a public hallway, felt safer.

“Would you consider doing a little surfing in cyberspace on my behalf, Alex?” I began. “I need a little help with some research.”

“Of course!” he replied, as I knew he would. There was virtually nothing Alex liked better than a cruise on the information superhighway. “What might I be researching?”

“Books. To be specific, rare books. Books of the Maya. You can skip the Chilam Balam books. That’s not what we’re looking for,” I said, remembering the information I had gleaned from Dona Josefina. “Something really rare. The equivalent of a Gutenberg Bible, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that sort of thing.”

“I’ll get right on it,” he said. He meant it, too. I could hear the clicking of the computer keys over the telephone. He was logging on to the Internet even as we spoke.

“Anything else?”

“Yes. I don’t know if this is possible or not, but I’d like to check some credentials.”

“Names?”

“Lucas May, Diego Maria Gomez Arias, Major Ignacio Martinez, and”—here I paused for a second or two—“Jonathan Hamelin. The first one, Lucas May, is an archaeologist, Mexican, don’t know much more than that. Gomez Arias is a wealthy eccentric here in Merida— hotels, water, that sort of stuff, owns a shipping company, collects art—”

“You seem to know a fair amount about him right now,” Alex interrupted. “Anything specific you want on him?”

“I don’t know really. Just see if there is anything out of the ordinary. Martinez is with the federal police, and that’s about all I know, except that I don’t like him.”

“And the last one?”

“Jonathan Hamelin. Archaeologist. British. Cambridge University. Specializes in Mesoamerican studies. Isa thinks he’s to the manor born, as it were.”

I wasn’t sure whether I was asking about Jonathan for personal reasons, or as part of the research on Don Hernan’s death. I fervently hoped it would turn out to be the former.

“Got it,” Alex said. “For some of this I may need to go into one of the news services. Unlike the Internet, these aren’t free. How badly do you need to know?”

“Badly. I’ll pay any charges, Alex, don’t worry. Take it out of the house money, and I’ll send some more.” I’d left some money to take care of any problems with my house that might arise while I was away.

“Thanks. How will I reach you?”

“Telephone me at the hotel. If I’m there, tell me there’s a leak in the basement of my house or something. I’ll get the idea. I’ll call you back within the hour from another phone.

“If I’m not there, just leave a message that you’ve called about some minor problem with my house. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Right. I’m on this,” he said.

“And Alex,” I said, “be careful. You are searching for information on something that people may be prepared to kill for. So please don’t do anything that would draw attention to yourself. No speeding on the Internet, okay?”

“There are no radar traps on the electronic highway, Lara,” he said. “But I get your point. I’ll try to be subtle.”

With that we signed off, and I headed for the morgue.

I was getting to be an expert at finding my way around the hallways of this austere institution, and soon once again found myself at the little window. He of the greasy fingers was there, eating again. I asked for Eulalia Gonzalez.

“Who may I tell her is asking for her?” he said rather formally for a man talking with his mouth full.

I gave my name. It would mean nothing to her, but what else could I do?

He called someone, then pressed the button that unlatched the door and waved me in the general direction of two vinyl-covered chairs that would have looked more suitable in someone’s kitchen. I waited.