Trouble Down Mexico Way

by Nancy Nau Sullivan

  Haasi could already tell where this conversation was going, but she needed to hear it to believe it. “And?”

  “Wanna have a look?” Blanche folded her arms on the table. “I was perfectly honest with Emilio. I told him we should poke around over there.”

  “We? Is that a good idea?”

  “Probably not. Cardenal said he was going to check out that woman. La Escandolera. But the wheel needs some grease. Emilio knows some side doors. I promised we’d wait for him.”

  “Blanche, why would anyone use the medical school lab for their creepy business?”

  “Good question.” Blanche started smiling, and Haasi could tell she was floating off somewhere into Blancheland. “I got it out of him when we were on our second beer.”

  “What are you talking about? Earth to Bang.”

  “Sorry, Haas. It was such a great day.” Blanche drifted back to the table. “Emilio seems to think that whoever is up to all that weird stuff at the Palacio has a lot of pull. And a set of keys, or a code to get in there. They can do whatever they want over there.”

  “Didn’t he try to talk you out of poking around?”

  “Yep.”

  It wouldn’t do any good to argue. “Does he really know how to get in there?”

  “Seems to,” said Blanche, taking another sip of red. “We ought to take a stab at it.”

  “Don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Well, Haas, don’t you want to check it out? With rumors of that woman and all that’s going on. Pretty suspicious, if you ask me.”

  “Bang, I don’t remember anyone asking you. This vacay is getting crazy.”

  “Vacay. Well, it is taking on new tones …” She held up the wine glass to the light. Clear and lovely.

  “The newspaper, Blanche. Ya know? We should be sticking to those articles and not this other stuff.”

  “Business is business, and this is serious.”

  Hassi gave her a sideways grin and shook her head. “I don’t know why, but I’m in. How can I not be? You certainly have a way of putting things. Why the hell not?”

  “Just the deets, ma’am. Just the deets.”

  They laughed and clinked glasses, maybe a bit too hard. A splash of wine bled onto the white cloth, and Blanche covered it with her napkin.

  They finished the bread, a couple of coffees, and a tray of cream puffs. “Thank you, SunStream Travel and the Mexico City Tourist Office!” said Blanche.

  “Let’s roll.”

  “Literally.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  GOING IN

  “He said to meet him here.” Blanche and Haasi stood under the arches near the jewelry store, rows of gold loops and bracelets catching a sunbeam. It was shady and cool in the arcade. They faced the Zocalo and the throngs of Mexicans spilling across the plaza, out of the Metro, zigzagging to restaurants and shops. Blanche searched the faces for Emilio, her heart racing at the thought of him—and their upcoming visit to the lab. The time to snoop was now.

  It was late afternoon. Blanche and Haasi had spent the better part of the day on the patio—their favorite spot, under the trees, sorting through material from the tourist office. Blanche planned to use much of it in her writing to back up the reel of images in her brain. She would concentrate on the city center, from the Zocalo to the park at Chapultepec. The museums, walks, and bike rides, the tours and food. There was a ton to sift through. Trouble was, Blanche loved it all. So did Haasi, who had already taken hundreds of photos. They kept getting sidetracked on their walks around the city, and that’s what ate up their time. That morning, they’d headed toward an art gallery and wound up in a museum of architecture, the door almost hidden from view on a busy street. They didn’t leave until Haasi’s stomach finally demanded it, loud and clear.

  “Emilio wants to go in after business hours. Close to dark,” said Blanche. “He tried to talk me out of it again, but I told him we were determined to go exploring.”

  Haasi gave Blanche a wry smile. “Blanche, we have no idea what we’re getting into. You know this could be real trouble, don’t you? And what the heck are we going to do if we find something?”

  “Call Cardenal?”

  Haasi scratched her head. “It may be too late.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes things happen and it’s too late to do anything about it. We need to be careful on this. Don’t you think Cardenal’s checked out the lab already?”

  “No, I don’t, and I think that’s an awful lot to think about right now, Haas. We don’t have a single answer. Nada. Maybe Cardenal is on it. But probably not. Emilio says it’s under the radar that the med school even operated over there. They were using the space up until a year or so ago, but now they’re not in there. Something about certification, bureaucracy, funding, blah blah blah. The academics supposedly cleared out, but Emilio says talk is our lady friend is hanging around. Doing what? A classmate said he sees her coming and going frequently.”

  “I’ll bet that was her—La Escandolera—leaving with those two goons from the Palacio.”

  “I’m sorry, but I think she, and her homies, killed an innocent woman and dried her up like a prune. For what?”

  “Blanche! Jeez, that’s awful.” Haasi’s expression was a fright. “Do you hear what you’re saying? I mean, we kind of talked around it, but this is not good. At all.”

  “Well?”

  Blanche saw him walking across the Zocalo, easy stride, cowboy boots and jeans. Her stomach took a little dip. His long legs closed the distance, and then he was next to her. He kissed her cheek, squeezed Haasi’s arm.

  “Crazy, beautiful ladies.” He gave them a slight bow. He reminded her of a dashing Spanish gentleman of the eighteenth century, except for the getup. “Blanche, let’s not make a big deal out of this. Please. In and out. I know of a side door, a maintenance entrance out of the way in the alley. We’ll go in, look around, and leave. OK?” He ducked his head and kissed Blanche’s ear lobe. “Will you be done with it then?”

  She smiled up at the look of concern on his face. “Just like we talked about. If we see something, we’ll tell Cardenal. Probably should have told the detective we’re going in tonight.”

  “You’re right. But, technically, we’re just visiting tourists. I used to have access to all the facilities, so I’m just showing you around. Visitors. You, me, us. A little tour.” He looked serious again, the smile lost.

  “Got it,” said Blanche. “Just visiting. But you understand, we need to do this. We really need to do this.”

  “Dios mío, you are something else,” he said, and looked at Haasi. “Is she always like this?”

  “Like what?” Haasi was implacable, protective as ever, and reticent to give anything away.

  “Determined? Curious? Able to drive a person crazy?”

  “Yes,” Haasi said.

  “Against my better judgment,” he said, “but I know you’ll be poking around there despite what I say. I can see it all over you.” His fingers were laced in hers, and he squeezed.

  Blanche’s adrenalin mixed with romance. It was a heady brew. Her legs were like cooked spaghetti, shivers went down her back. “Let’s go then, move it along. If we see something, we speak up. Isn’t that the right thing to do?”

  “Well, I don’t know if that refers to discovering the source of fake mummies, but whatever.” Haasi sighed.

  Emilio looked across the Zocalo. The Mexicans strolled in all directions, along the sidewalk and across the plaza. The men with hair slicked back, trim beards, and the women smelling of rose and jasmine. Children ran around, laughing, their faces full of delight. Beautiful. Curls and dark eyes. “Crowds. That’s good,” said Emilio. “Do you see the façade of the Palacio? We’re going past and around back to a separate building down an alley, like we saw, Blanche, on our bike ride. No guard at the side entrance. I have a key code. Let’s mix with the crowd and look like we know what we’re doing.”

 
They walked briskly, Blanche in the lead. Emilio touched Haasi’s arm and grinned. “She knows where she’s going.”

  “Pretty much.”

  It was getting dark, and the side door was obscured in a niche of the old building. The alleyway loomed up around them like a dark cave, nondescript, hollow, and empty. Emilio punched in some numbers. They were inside. “Put your lights on but keep them low,” he said. They each had a penlight, and now Blanche clicked hers on. The floor in the entry was concrete, the stairs to the left, worn, crooked stone. It was damp and smelled vaguely of mold and a chemical. Bleach? Disinfectant? Formalin and alcohol. Blanche recognized it from biology class. She’d never forget that smell, that and the frog she’d butchered, mostly with her eyes closed.

  Inside the entry were double doors. Emilio tried the handle. No dice. Blanche was already climbing the stairs, with Haasi behind her. Emilio fell in last.

  The top of the stair led to a short hallway and another door at the end. A glass pane shined with a dull grey light. Blanche tried the door. It was open.

  “Wait!” Emilio slid past her. “I know this area. It’s an old lab. Careful. There are beakers and cords and liquids …”

  They stood in the dimly lit lab, a cavernous space of white tile, steel, and high, dirty rectangular windows on one wall. The air was close, an even stronger whiff of chemicals hitting Blanche directly in the nose.

  “Yeah. Weird. And look at that!” Blanche held up her penlight. The beam illuminated a strange bed of white pipes, tilted. Hoses led away from the contraption to a drain in the floor.

  “Oh, wow,” said Haasi.

  Emilio was silent. He walked around the “bed,” his light working from one end to the other. He retraced his steps. At the lower end where a clamp secured the pipes to a frame were hairs. Long, black hairs, just the amount that would get caught in a fast comb out. “Look at this. Cardenal ought to see this.”

  “I don’t think the police have been here,” said Blanche. “Looks pretty much like business as usual.”

  Blanche’s throat constricted, she turned to Haasi. “That mummy. The one that isn’t really … Didn’t she have black hair? That was the other thing, besides the skin texture and the hair clip. The hair on that one just didn’t pass the ancient hay test like the others.”

  “Righto,” said Haasi. She took a step back and stumbled over a tangle of hoses. She lifted the penlight. Some of them snaked up to suspended bottles of liquid on a rack where a web of tubes were neatly coiled, next to hanging loops of hoses. “Not exactly set up for watering your garden. What the hell is going on here?”

  “Wish I knew. We didn’t take this class,” said Emilio. The three huddled close together, their lights sweeping over the lab. The tangles of tubes and hoses like snakes. The sterile, oddly contrived space. Blanche had never been in a mortuary, but this place screamed cold and dead.

  Nothing good happens here.

  Blanche shined her penlight on vials of liquid. “This stuff might be the weird smell. None of it is labeled. What do you think it is, Emilio?”

  “No idea, but I’d say from the odor, it’s some kind of preservative or disinfectant.”

  They moved carefully around the perimeter of the room. Emilio shined the light against an expanse of tiled walls and onto an elevated metal table. A long steel counter with tools, some of them lethally sharp, others blunt. “Don’t touch anything,” he said. He tore a paper towel from a roll and sorted through a bin of tools. Lifting one frightening implement, he said, “This is used to break bones. In order to reset them. At least that’s the intended use.” He put it back with the rest of the assortment.

  Blanche shivered. It was hot outside and like a dark, cool grave inside. She shined the light around the lab. A small round table and a wooden armchair were tucked into a corner, and neatly arranged on top were a coffee maker, filters, a large red can. “This looks so cozy. Somebody’s been here lately. Didn’t you say this place has been closed up?”

  “For the most part. Except for special operations, and certainly, recent operations,” said Emilio. He lifted the lid on the coffeemaker with the tip of his finger and sniffed. “Yeah, these coffee grounds are newer.”

  “Newer? As new as our mysterious mummy?” Blanche stood next to him, spotlighting the coffee pot. “And what’s this? All the secrets of youth and beauty.” A mirror, several lipsticks, hair spray, and tubes of makeup and compacts of face powder were scattered on a small silver tray.

  Haasi poked around the shelves in the opposite corner. “Hey, look at this.” Blanche and Emilio joined her. Haasi opened the cover on a ledger with the end of her penlight. Inside, in neat legible writing, were names, procedures, “delivery” dates, all in Spanish. Emilio leaned over the page, and Blanche saw the look on his face. Even in the dim room, she could see the change. Anger? Disgust? Horror.

  “They’ve been busy in here. Gunshot wounds. Strangulation. Notes on desiccation.” he said.

  “Desiccation!” Blanche grabbed his arm.

  “Not exactly a normal medical procedure, but it has been a preservation practice. For thousands of years,” said Emilio.

  Haasi flipped pages. The three put their heads together, their shallow breathing the only sound in the lab.

  Blanche’s Spanish was only fair, but she could still make out the meaning of some notes in the ledger. “Look at this! Says here, these monks used honey to mummify bodies, even stuffing themselves with it before death.”

  “Sweet,” whispered Haasi.

  In the next minute, a door at the far end of the lab clanged open. A metal object dully hit the wall. The three froze.

  Chapter Fifteen

  GOING OUT

  “What you doing in here?” The disembodied voice came from across the lab.

  Blanche thought of bolting out the door they’d entered. She reached for Haasi’s hand and leaned into Emilio. Her head jerked toward that entrance.

  Emilio put a finger to his lips. He took one step toward the voice. “What are you doing here?” Demanding to know right back.

  “Yeah. What?” Blanche’s voice reverberated through the cold space. I didn’t need to say that. Wow, what is wrong with me? She immediately regretted opening her mouth. She’d forgotten to turn off her filter.

  Haasi yanked at the back of her jacket. “Bang!” She gritted her teeth, her voice barely above a whisper. “Be quiet.”

  Emilio had his arms out, shielding the women, but it didn’t do any good. Blanche had already taken a step toward the voice.

  “Do not move. Stay where you are.” The voice became a body, a wide one, dressed in black, so Blanche could only make out his face. It was not a pretty sight. A long mustache curled in a scowl under a bulbous nose. He moved closer. A gun in his hand. From where Blanche stood, she could see the pockmarks and the dull evil glint in his eyes. “Over there, against the wall. Vayan.” He waved the gun in the direction of the corner next to the bed of pipes. Equidistant from either door. Impossible to run for it.

  Emilio turned slightly. “Don’t talk,” he whispered.

  He took a couple more steps toward the man. He held the gun up. Emilio stopped. “I’m a medical student. A doctor in training. I am taking these students on a tour of the lab. And the museum, and the Zocalo …”

  “El museo is closed, and the Zocalo is out there.” He waved the gun around, and Blanche flinched. “Lab is not for tourists and students.”

  The man was quick. He grabbed the penlight from Emilio and walked over to the shelf with the ledger. It was still open where they’d left off poking around. The man flipped the pages, and turned to the three visitors, the gun still pointing in their direction. “You have very big eyes. Not so good.”

  “You can say that again.” Blanche hissed. They drew closer together. “What are we gonna do now?”

  Blanche had the awful feeling that it wasn’t up to them.

  u

  A door slammed. Blanche ripped the blindfold off her face, a smelly bandanna th
at reeked of old grease and sweat. “Great! Now I’ll probably get typhoid on top of everything else,” she muttered. She looked around. She was alone in a small room. Dark wooden walls, ceiling. A small two-seat, high-back sofa. A high, narrow window, crusty with paint and dust and cobwebs. There was one door, and she tried it. Of course, it was locked.

  Shit.

  She shook her head, hard, and squinched her eyes. Her first thought: Haasi! Emilio! A cold fright squeezed her middle. She slumped to the floor against the wall. The man with the gun had blindfolded her, and Haasi, she supposed. Before the bandanna went over Blanche’s eyes, the gunman whipped the pistol across Emilio’s face. A rough hand pushed her out of the lab. She stumbled down the stairs. She winced at the memory of the cold look in the gunman’s eyes. He’d put the gun in Emilio’s back and told him to steer her and Haasi out of the lab; she’d felt his long fingers between her shoulder blades. A slight caressing, a whisper. “Don’t worry, it will be all right.”

  But it wasn’t all right. The scuffling, a protest. Now she was in this room. Alone, and worried out of her mind about Emilio and Haasi. How long had she been here? Hours? She couldn’t keep track of time.

  Emilio called us students. Good move, but what about him?

  She sat, she stared off into space. She got up and went around the room, tapping on the walls frantically not thinking for a second if it was doing a bit of good. “Haasi!” She screeched. She didn’t give a damn who heard her. “Emilio!” It dawned on her that the nonsensical wailing wasn’t helping. She had to think.

  She fell onto the sofa, her hands covering her face. Shivering in the small hot room at the thought of all that had gone wrong, and all that could go more wrong. She wrapped her arms around her middle and shook in terror.

  u

  Blanche was fully awake. It was near dawn. A sliver of light grey lit the grimy window. She didn’t move. She heard something. A faint tapping. Faulty plumbing? Couldn’t be. She willed it to be a signal, willed it to be true. It got louder, more insistent. Blanche leapt off the sofa and pressed her ear to the wall. Her hands ran over the walls, up and down. Until she reached a small, framed panel. The tapping was loudest here. She banged on the panel, a newer slice of painted wood, a cheap plywood. She waited for a response. She leaned down and, near tears, yelled, “Who’s there? Haasi?”