01 _ Xibalba Murders, The (28 page)

Montserrat Gomez will probably not be so lucky. It will be interesting to see what her sentence will be under a justice system that has no presumption of innocence, and no guaranteed right to a trial by jury.

From what I’ve heard, her defense will be that Jonathan was the murderer, she the unwilling accomplice whose only role was to arrange the export of the pre-Columbian artifacts through her father’s shipping company. I expect to be called as a witness for the prosecution, and I suppose I will do my best to see that she is convicted.

Diego Maria Gomez Arias has, to all intents and purposes, lost a daughter, but was reunited with his mother and reconciled with his wife. Sheila Stratton Gomez showed the stuff of which she is made and stood by her husband, bailing him out financially and providing the emotional support he needed through this period. She told me, last time I saw her, that she realized that Diego had married her because she resembled some subconscious image of the mother he had lost, but that she felt, in time, he would come to love her for what she is. She has not, she told me, had a drink in six months.

Told that her son wanted to see her, Dona Josefina awoke from her semicoma, and contrary to all medical predictions is back ensconced in her room at the Casa de las Buganvillas, imperious as ever. I think she must have recognized Don Diego as her long-lost son when he first returned to Merida, but perhaps because of her colorful past, was afraid to approach him. Now she and her son have been reunited after all these years, and are slowly piecing together the past.

I did not return to my studies. Real life had intervened in a significant way. Sarah Greenhalgh, the woman who had purchased McClintoch and Swain, approached me about buying back a share of the company. She felt, she said, that she did not have the eye for the merchandise or the wanderlust necessary to make such a business succeed.

Initially I declined, telling her about the warning from my lawyer to stay away from business for a while so that Clive couldn’t come after me for more money.

Then Clive did me a favor, although he may not have seen it that way. He found himself a wealthy widow, wooed her, and married her in short order. The wedding was, I am told, the social event of the season. I gave it a pass.

But the minute the union was legal, I called Sarah and asked if the offer was still open. It was. I took it. The new Greenhalgh and McClintoch sign was in place a month or two later, all traces of Clive erased. Alex comes in for a couple of hours every day to help us out.

Lucas has agreed to be our temporary agent in Mexico until I can find a replacement for Don Hernan. I’m in no hurry to do so. Every three or four months I fly to Merida to see what Lucas has found for us. In between we meet in Miami about once a month for a long weekend together.

It was Lucas who first found Don Hernan’s body at the
museo,
after days of searching for him, not knowing that Don Hernan had journeyed, as I would later on, to the very spot where Lucas was working. And it was he who put the jade bead in the dead man’s mouth. He hadn’t been able to save the old man, he told me, but at least he felt he was able to give him something for the journey through the next life.

In many ways my relationship with Lucas is perfect for right now. I’m not interested in marriage again, not yet anyway, and he is a gentle and considerate friend and lover.

It is an interesting question, though, isn’t it, as to whether it is possible to have a truly trusting and intimate relationship with someone who keeps something very important from you.

He has not told me who the men who followed him through the forest are, or what his involvement with the guerrillas might be.

Even more important, I will never ask, nor do I expect he will ever tell me, what he did with Smoking Frog’s codex. Knowing him as well as I do, I can only assume it will not be used for evil purposes.