Elisha’s Bones (16 page)
I get control of myself and put my arm around Esperanza’s waist.
“I’m going to take you home. You can take your bubble bath, and I’ll let Romero hit me a few times for putting you in danger. After that, I’m getting on a plane to Sydney.”
It takes a long moment for the last part to sink in.
“You’re what?”
“I’m going to Sydney.”
“What on earth for?”
“To find out who’s trying to kill me.” I pause before adding, “And who killed Will.”
The look on her face is one for the ages, and it almost sets me to laughing again, even through the fresh pain. Instead, I give her a reassuring squeeze.
“I’ll explain everything. I promise.”
We walk a ways in silence and I imagine she’s wondering what connections she’s missed, how I’ve linked this to Will. Too, she’s probably going through a litany of arguments she can use to talk me out of it. But she knows me—knows that I am going to Sydney.
“Sydney’s a big city. And you have no idea who you’re looking for.”
“That’s why I’m glad I know your brother.”
S
eldom does physical confrontation rear its head in educational circles, and for good reason: anyone who has ever witnessed two academics engaged in fisticuffs can testify to the wrongness of the activity. I suppose that’s why I’m a bit jumpy. Within the last week, I’ve been hit—twice. By the same woman. I’ve also had guns pointed at me three times, with one of those instances resulting in the firing of actual bullets, as well as the violent crash of an expensive truck. So I think I can be forgiven my anxiousness as Romero’s large hand comes toward me, offering a piece of paper.
“It was a light manifest,” he says.
I take the paper, a Qantas moniker in the top right corner. Under a heading for Flight 2976 there’s a list of perhaps fifty names. My friend has crossed through a number of them, the obvious female ones. That still leaves more than half, and I’m beginning to realize that this might be more difficult than I’d anticipated.
“Thanks.”
My gratitude covers both the manifest and the fact that Romero has decided not to injure me. Even though I’m not directly responsible for his sister having been in danger, I understand that brothers don’t always react in a reasonable manner. How could I have known there might really be a global conspiracy intent on keeping some ancient and dangerous secret? None of us thought the outing was anything other than an interesting academic exercise.
When we called Romero from San Cristóbal to fill him in and to let him know we were on our way back, I thought he might come through the phone. I’m not sure whom he would have fixed his anger on: the ones who forced us off the road, or me. I’m thankful for the hours that separated us from this meeting. And when we finally arrived at the Caracas airport, his eyes were hard and looked dangerous. They still do.
We are in Esperanza’s apartment, and she has yet to sink into the solace of a bubble bath, even though she favors her right leg. She showed me the bruise during the flight. It’s an ominous discoloration of flesh that covers much of the area above her knee. I showed off my own injury while still in San Cristóbal, removing the bandages, cleaning and rewrapping the wound. With any luck I’ll avoid an infection. I’m amazed we walked away from the crash. There is a certain giddiness that comes from having survived something that would cause an actuary to soil himself. That might explain the grin I’m wearing.
“What will you do now?” Romero asks. He is standing near his sister as she rests on the couch, her injured leg spread across the cushions and covered with three ice packs.
The answer to that question became obvious during the flight back. I know who and where Reese is, whereas the Australian exists outside of any parameters I can place around him. Right now he commands most of my attention.
“That’s simple. I have to match one of these names with a picture in my head, then find out who wants me dead.”
“If that’s the criteria, I may be on that manifest,” Espy says with a smirk.
“And how will you do that?” her brother asks.
“Hopefully with a phone call.” I don’t have any delusions that it will be that simple, but I cling to optimism anyway.
Romero settles onto the arm of the couch with a grunt, careful to avoid bumping his sister’s hurting leg. He fixes a hard gaze on me, much like one of the looks I’ve suffered from Duckey, as if I’m a specimen beneath a magnifying lens. The years of bearing up beneath the looks of my professor friend serve me well here as I maintain my smile under the Venezuelan’s scrutiny.
“It’s a fool’s errand,” he says. “You’re rushing off to a big city half a world away, picking a fight with someone with enough resources to know where you were and what you were up to. You’ll end up getting yourself killed.”
When I do not answer, he says, “Think about it. An alarm bell went off somewhere, and it told them that you were messing around in something you shouldn’t have been. And I think you were reasonably discreet. If you go off half-cocked to Sydney, do you think they will not know you’re coming before your plane leaves the ground?”
“You forget. They think I’m dead.”
“Not for long. When they do not get any pictures in their email, they will know they’ve been betrayed.”
“By that time, I’ll already be in Sydney.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He glances down at the floor, then back at me. “I’m going to hate myself for telling you this, but I found a reference.”
“To what?”
“The little research project you assigned me.” The words come grudgingly.
I feel a tingle along the back of my neck, that feeling I get at the moment of discovery which can make months of exhausting labor worth every pulled muscle and incidence of second-degree sunburn.
“A reference book at a library in Berkeley mentioned a family disinterment in 1629. They moved an ossuary from Samarc to Gatai.”
“Did it say why?” I ask.
“No. As far as I can tell—and remember, we’re talking about material almost four hundred years old and written by a French expatriate—a group with the Chevrier designation purchased an estate in Gatai in1628 and then sold it in 1641. And there’s no mention that any dead relatives went with them back to Samarc.”
My brain is working furiously now, trying to fit these small bits of data into a scheme that makes sense along the timeline. At the same time, I’m humbled that Romero took my request as seriously as he did. I hate to think how much research he had to do to find that one reference book.
“Is it too much to ask if it gave the name of the person they moved?”
“No name, but the text used the word
uncle
. And we both know how little that says.”
He’s right. In the genealogical parlance of the period, uncle could mean anything from the brother of one’s parent to a respected cousin from five generations ago. Still, it wouldn’t have been common to dig up and transport remains of someone beyond an immediate family member or a respected patriarch. There’s some meat to chew on here. Before the idea can take hold of anything, I dislodge the information and stuff it into the cranial cavity designated to hold unsubstantiated musings, like who really killed Kennedy, or what comprises the Colonel’s spices.
“I’m sorry, my friend. It’s all I could find.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s just what I needed.”
“Except that all I’ve done is to encourage you, when I should be attempting to get you to abandon this nonsense.”
I appreciate his sentiment. On the flight back from San Cristóbal, I went through all of this in my mind. Do I really want to add a globe-spanning pursuit to the list of things I’ve done over my vacation? Shouldn’t I just be happy I’m alive and that I can leave this crazy place and go back to Evanston? It’s possible that if I show obvious signs of giving up, they will leave me alone.
The only answer that makes any sense is that I don’t believe I have a choice. I feel as if some veil has been lifted, and it has shown me the mechanism that controls my life, and the man with the errant balloon who operates the levers and pulleys. I feel as if events outside of my influence have wrapped me up and carted me hither and thither. Now that I’m aware of the manipulation, there is that indefinable something inside that may want to explore choosing the destination. And, despite the fact that everything in my life over the last five years demonstrates disengagement, I can’t deny I have a need to see some light shed on what happened at KV65. It’s a need strong enough to set my destination away from where I’d rather go. Ethiopia will have to wait. In my mind is a picture of the man who killed Will; I have no doubt of it. And unless I do something, I don’t think going back to Evanston will provide me sufficient distance from myself.
As if on cue, my phone rings.
“He’s dying,” Duckey says.
“Hello, Ducks.”
“Reese has liver cancer. His chart lists it as undifferentiated hepatocellular carcinoma. It’s stage four.”
I don’t ask how Duckey got hold of Reese’s medical records. Nor do I tell him that I already knew Reese is dying. It will give him a sense of accomplishment to think he uncovered that by himself. “Thanks. That’s helpful,” I say. “Did you find anything else?”
“The fact that he’s dying isn’t significant enough?”
“We’re all dying, Ducks.”
“Some of us not quickly enough,” he grumbles. “Hold on, I have a few things jotted down here.”
There’s a span of several seconds, during which he drops the phone and I hear several choice phrases as he retrieves it.
“All right, here’s my list, in no particular order. Reese Industries netted more than three hundred million last year. Their stock split. He named his son CEO in March. He’s flown three times to San Diego, and once each to Vienna, Paris, and Addis Ababa—all in the last twelve months. He has four children and seven grandchildren, and one of the grandkids has terminal cancer.” He pauses, then adds, “She’s the one in San Diego.”
As he finishes, I’m working through the information, seizing on the bit that I find most alarming.
“He’s been to Ethiopia?” I try to keep the panic out of my voice.
“Got back yesterday. He spent two, maybe three days there.”
I quickly go back over the timeline. If Duckey’s right, then Reese left for Addis Ababa within a half day of my last conversation with him. I have no idea what to make of that. How could he have known of the Ethiopian connection before I’d connected the dots? It takes a moment’s silence—during which I can hear Duckey’s children yelling in the background—before the obvious answer presents itself.
“He has another team.”
“If you say so.”
I’d forgotten that I have yet to reveal the particulars of my employment to Duckey. He has no idea why I’m interested in Reese, much less that I’m leading a research team for the man. Rather, I
was
leading a research team for him. Now it appears I was just one of Gordon’s bets—one late to pay off. I find myself wondering, however briefly, who’s leading the competition?
The unpredictability of this enterprise has just increased by a factor of ten, and some of that has to do with the revelation of the granddaughter’s illness. I force myself to avoid thinking of her as a person at this point; as harsh as that might seem, obsessing over the impending death of a child I’ve never met does me no good. At the moment, she is a puzzle piece, only I’m not sure where she fits. Reese’s uncharacteristic behavior is the sort of thing that might be driven by worry, but it doesn’t explain why he would sabotage one of his chances at finding the bones. Unless he’s already found them . . . My eyes widen as I consider that; it makes my stomach knot to think that someone else may have beaten me to a quarry that, within the last few days, has started to take on substance.
“Duckey, you have no idea how much you’ve just helped.”
“Then why do I feel like I just gave you the go-ahead to do something stupid?”
I chuckle at that but do not answer, because he’s right. I’m so enthralled with the information he’s provided, I almost forget to ask for my second favor. “Ducks, I hate to overdraw from my account, but I need another favor.”
“You do realize I’m on vacation, don’t you?”
“If I send you a list of names, can you get your buddy at the State Department to run them through their system?”
It’s the sort of request that can change the entire nature of a conversation. Indulging a friend by collecting information about a reclusive billionaire is one thing; leveraging the resources of two government agencies in one week is quite another.
“What’s going on, Jack?”
I sigh, understanding the position in which I’ve put him. “It’s important, Ducks. I can’t go into it right now, but I wouldn’t ask if I had any other options.”
For the second time in as many days, I’ve asked him to weigh the level of trust that exists in our friendship. Fortunately, it appears I still have enough in the account to cover this one.
“Send me the names,” he says. “But that explanation you owe me? It had better be the most eloquent thing I’ve ever heard, or else every one of your classes will be at eight a.m. next semester, got it?”
“Got it.”
“What am I asking them to check for?”
I tell him and then, after ending the call, I turn to Romero.
“Do you know if there are any direct flights to Addis Ababa?”
A
ddis Ababa sits in the foothills of the Entoto Mountains, and as we travel north along Menelik II, I can see their greens and browns through an unseasonable haze. It’s been more than a decade since I’ve been here but there are some things that leave a lasting impression. And looking out over the Ethiopian capital from a mountain ridge is one of those things. My knee aches and I shift as much as the cramped space will allow until I’m rewarded by a relaxing of pressure.
I gaze out the window as the minibus slows to pass a donkey train that is navigating a boulevard shaded by a long line of eucalyptus trees. As the man next to me—the one virtually sitting on my lap—shouts again into his cell phone, the thought of conveyance by a smelly, cantankerous animal seems pleasant by comparison, and that’s taking the flies into consideration. As if to validate that desire, the weyala leaning out the door of the vehicle calls to a group of pedestrians in Amharic, gesturing toward the oversized taxi. My command of the language is suspect, but it’s a good bet he told them we’re headed to Arat Kilo Square, and we’ve got plenty of room. There are no takers, and the blue and white bus speeds off.
