The Corpse with the Crystal Skull

by Cathy Ace

  “I suppose at something over eighty, Freddie realized he’d need to make his wishes for his final arrangements, and his estate, known. I bet I’m not the only one at this table who’s sorted out his will,” said John. He winked at Lottie. “Though there’s a lot of life left in this old boy yet.”

  I hadn’t foreseen our conversation taking this route, and I hoped that the grunting by Bud and me that we’d sorted out our wills, and by Jack and Sheila to the same effect, would bring the topic to a natural conclusion. But Lottie didn’t let it go.

  She laughed, then said, “Daddy’s made sure I’ve reviewed my will every year since I turned twenty-one. That’s when I got my inheritance from my late mother. It had been in trust until then, but the minute one actually owns it all, one simply has to pay attention to what’s going to happen to the lolly, as well as the houses, after one’s gone.”

  She might as well have chucked a bucket of water at me; beautiful, bright, young, and wealthy? Of course.

  “Lolly?’ queried Sheila.

  “Money,” whispered Jack.

  “I can’t imagine what it must be like to be rich,” said Sheila; there wasn’t a hint of envy in her tone, just an innocent wonderment.

  “It’s rather odd, at first,” replied Lottie earnestly. “Daddy had been incredibly strict about my allowance, then – overnight – I had all this loot sloshing about in my bank account. It was so tempting to rush about spending it willy nilly, but Daddy was terribly sensible and packed me off on a series of financial management courses. They were deadly dull, of course, but I got the gist of it; you can only spend money once, so spend it wisely. Invest when one can, do one’s research and due diligence thoroughly, and know that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. I haven’t experienced any major disasters so far, though I must admit it’s awfully tiresome to be constantly told about ‘fabulous opportunities’ by all and sundry at dinner parties, and so forth. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy being with John – he doesn’t have the slightest interest in markets and start-ups and all that sort of thing.”

  She beamed at John, who returned her smile sheepishly, and I began to understand what he’d meant about Lottie – she was bright alright, and probably a lot of people underestimated her…possibly to their cost.

  Then she upended my generous thoughts by saying, “I’d like to see Montego Bay again, John. I came to Jamaica sometimes with Daddy, just for short breaks, you know, and I loved the song before I ever saw the place. Haven’t been there for almost twenty years. How about it? I know you might not be too keen, because it’s where you spent your first honeymoon, wasn’t it? But I really would love to see it again. I’m sure it will have changed a great deal since I last saw it, but so have I. I could face it again, now.”

  Several questions flashed through my brain, seemingly all at once: couldn’t Lottie recognize that talking about the place where Sheila’s sister had died so tragically was just a bit inconsiderate?; why didn’t I know that John had once been married?; what did Lottie mean by his “first” honeymoon…how many had he had?; and why could Lottie “face” Montego Bay again, now…what had happened there to make her not want to face it previously?

  “You honeymooned in Jamaica with Sascha?” asked Bud. He knew John had been married? And knew his wife’s name?

  John shook his head. “No, not Sascha, she was number two. We went to Klosters. Winter wedding. Emily and I came here. It was fun, until it wasn’t. Beginning of the end there and then.”

  “Ah, Emily,” chorused Jack and Bud. They both knew about more than one of John’s wives?

  I couldn’t resist. “How many wives have you had, John?”

  “Only three,” he replied, sounding grim.

  “That must mean a good deal of alimony,” I dared.

  Bud kicked me under the table – he actually kicked me. Well, it was more of a nudge with his foot, I suppose, but it was enough.

  “Not really.” John’s voice was heavy. “Sascha remarried within months of our divorce, and Suzie did likewise. But Emily died. By her own hand. It knocked me for six at the time. Don’t mind admitting it. And all over a stupid affair she had. More of a fling, really. I kicked up a fuss about it. We were young. My first time to believe I was going to spend the rest of my life with someone. But I pushed her away when she needed me most. Didn’t know it at the time, of course. Bad show, all round.” He seemed to be talking to himself, not us.

  I understood the warning I’d received from Bud, though I thought the kick was a bit much; I decided I’d have a word with him about that later…after this less-than-ideal dinner was done and dusted. For a group of people who’d all agreed to meet to discuss a specific topic – Freddie Burkinshaw – we weren’t doing very well at keeping on track.

  “I got them to deliver some coconut ice cream for dessert,” said Sheila. “We could tidy up while it become less brick-like.”

  The spell was broken, and we worked as a team to clear the detritus from the table, sort out the washing up, and find some more alcohol; it seemed we’d been drinking rather a lot as we’d been chatting about the brevity of life, and most of us felt the need for a least a nightcap to round off the evening.

  The rain had finally stopped, the warm air had dried all the outdoor furnishings, and the almost-full moon was peeping from behind the ragged remnants of the clouds. We agreed to have brandies at the small tables beside the pool, to be able to make the most of the less-humid night air. The three men and Lottie all lit large cigars, while I stuck to my usual tiny cigarettes. Sheila sat close to Jack, inhaling as much of his cigar smoke as possible; ex-smokers do that quite a bit, I’ve noticed. To be fair, it was a delightfully aromatic cigar.

  After the Budapest incident, Bud and I had agreed I’d give up smoking – again! – as a part of my physical recovery. But, as usual, I’d struggled with it, and he’d capitulated when we’d arrived in Jamaica, on the basis that I could only smoke outside; I’d agreed, and promised I’d try to keep my intake low. Then Freddie joined us for dinner on our second evening at the place, and Bud had shocked me by accepting a cigar from him afterwards, along with a fancy brandy. Both had now become a regular thing for him, which I didn’t mind at all because it stopped him nagging me about my smoking, though it was strange to see him puffing away, and using the cigar as an extension of his hand – a bit like an orchestra conductor’s baton – as he chatted. We’d both agreed we’d get back to normal when we got home…for Marty’s sake, as well as our own, because he’s getting on a bit and we don’t want to force our poor, old dog to smoke.

  The nocturnal insects, and other invisible wildlife, filled the air with a soothing cacophony, and our voices were mellowed by the tropical planting and the glowing water in the pool. It was idyllic. The only problem was that I knew it wasn’t really an escape to paradise, but a covert mission for some, and a necessarily duplicitous investigation into a suspicious death for the rest of us.

  With that in mind, I knew I had to give us the chance to begin the conversations we so desperately needed to have so that I could get on with trying to profile the late Freddie Burkinshaw.

  “I know none of us want as late a night as last night,” I began – four heads nodded in agreement, while Lottie looked puzzled, “so I just wanted to say that I’d like to take the initiative, and maybe find out a bit more about Freddie; we’ve all had long chats with him, some more than others, and I’d like to hear everything he told each one of you about himself. We might be able to discover someone who wanted him out of the way.”

  “Other than his Italian neighbor, and her realtor, you mean,” said Lottie.

  “Yes, what about them?” I replied. “Did Amelia tell you any more than what you mentioned earlier today, Lottie? Did Freddie mention this Italian woman to anyone else?”

  Bud and I had agreed this was the best way for all of us to appear to be throwing ourselves into investigating Freddie’s demise, so I looked toward him with som
e hope. But his expression told me he knew nothing. As did every other face, except Lottie’s; her eyes were gleaming with excitement even though the only real illumination came from the lights beneath the pale turquoise waters of the swimming pool.

  “John had forty winks earlier on, and I did a bit of research,” she began. “Amelia mentioned the Italian woman’s name, and I tracked her down online. Now bear with me, because I don’t have your memory, Cait, but I do know more now than I did this afternoon. The woman’s name is Nina Mazzo, and she was a starlet at the Cinecittà Studios in Italy, back in the 1950s. Came here in the 1960s with her husband, who built the house on the estate next to this one. It’s called Caro Mio. That’s ‘My Dear’ in English, so maybe he named it for her. Anyway, the man she married – Luca Mazzo – was extremely wealthy. Apparently, he had buckets of cash at his disposal right after the second world war – which suggests he made it by dodgy means, if you ask me, because crooks are the only sort of people who have pots of money after a war. He was a good deal older than her. I found pictures of her online, but not him. She was stunning. Very much the same sort of stamp as Sophia Loren. All curves and pouty lips. She had a few small bit-parts in some of those sandal-and-toga things they were making at the studios in Italy at the time, but packed it in when she married. Spent the rest of her life here. Her husband popped his clogs in the 1980s. She never remarried. In her eighties now.”

  Bud looked impressed, and John was positively glowing.

  Lottie allowed herself a little smile when she noticed John’s expression, then continued, “It seems there was a landslide in the earthquake of 1993 that affected the access road to her house, and she’s been ‘negotiating’ with Freddie over a strip of land that would make life easier for her ever since then. They’ve been in and out of court for years, according to some articles I read in the Jamaica Gleaner, where it also says she’s going to file some paperwork which proves she’s actually owned said bit of land all along, and that Freddie has no right to it at all.”

  I was beginning to realize Lottie might have her uses; her information-gathering seemed thorough, and her reporting of it succinct.

  “That sounds interesting,” said Bud. We all nodded our agreement.

  “I downloaded some photos of her in her heyday,” added Lottie, fishing her phone from her evening bag and scrolling.

  The device reached me last, and I could see why everyone’s eyebrows had shot up when they’d seen the woman in question; Nina Mazzo had been a real stunner. An hourglass would have been jealous of her curves, and she had that fabulously haughty look one sees on the faces of women who know just how attractive they are.

  “That was taken in 1957. She was seventeen. She married Mazzo the next year,” said Lottie as I returned her phone.

  I was gobsmacked. “Seventeen? Good grief, when I think how I looked when I was that age, I shudder. Her? She looks so mature. I don’t mean just her clothes, accessories, hair and make-up, which I bet she learned about at the movie studios, but her entire presentation of herself to the world. It’s quite something. Amazing.”

  “There are lots more photos of her online, right up until her husband died, then there’s almost nothing,” chirped Lottie. “She’d have been in her mid-forties when he died. Young enough to have remarried, but she didn’t. I dare say you’d find that strange, wouldn’t you, John?” Lottie grinned playfully.

  “I’m just an eternal optimist,” countered John. “Maybe she’d had the perfect marriage and couldn’t imagine replacing her dearly departed husband.”

  “Or maybe she was just happier living alone, spending her late-husband’s money,” I countered.

  “Ouch!” John grinned. “Is she always this cynical, Bud?”

  “Part of her charm,” quipped Bud.

  “I’m sitting right here, you know. I am not a chattel,” I said. Not too earnestly, I hoped.

  “And perfectly capable of speaking for yourself, yes, I know, Wife,” said Bud. “Maybe there’s something in this battle between Freddie and Nina over land rights, but can you really see an eighty-year-old woman shooting a man a few years her senior just so she can enlarge her driveway? Seems a bit unlikely to me.”

  “She uses a man named Niall Jackson to represent her. Irish blood, and known as a bit of a rottweiler in court, apparently. Quite high profile locally. Likes cases with lots of newspaper coverage,” said Lottie.

  “You’ve really dug into this,” observed Sheila.

  Lottie laughed. “Well, maybe John had more like eighty winks than forty. And –” her voice took on a different tone – “I wanted to be helpful. I like to be helpful when I can be. Especially when I meet a new group of people as lovely as you all are.”

  I responded with: “You’ve been incredibly helpful, Lottie. Now all we need to do is work out how we might be able to find out a bit more, and we could be onto something.”

  “Nina Mazzo has invited us for coffee, tomorrow morning, just us three girls. Would that be a good start?” Lottie beamed.

  “How did you manage that?” asked Bud.

  “I dug around until I found a number for her, then phoned and told her what had happened this morning. She was agog. The invitation was instant. I think she wants all the gory details.” Lottie glowed as she spoke.

  Death Scene Do Over

  “It looks like Lottie’s keen to help,” said Bud as we turned in. “That could be useful. If she’s busy with you and Sheila, investigating possible reasons for Freddie being murdered, it’ll keep her out of our way so we can try to track down what we’re looking for.”

  I plumped my pillow. “What you mean is that we girls can do busy-work so you boys can get the important job done, isn’t it?”

  Bud sighed. “No, that’s not what I meant at all. I meant what I said. It’s important that we – as a group – find out if there are any real leads to a possible killer. We need to tackle that issue, as well as finding the items we need to secure. Both jobs need doing. And the sooner we understand why Freddie was killed – assuming he was – the easier I’ll sleep, because we still don’t know if his death means that someone was onto him, and therefore might be onto us.”

  The exquisite, cool, cotton pillowcase felt good against my cheek when I snuggled down. “I know,” I admitted. “Just playing.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to tell how serious you are,” said Bud quietly.

  “Good,” I replied, smirking. “Now, let’s get some sleep. John and Lottie are on breakfast duty in the morning, but I’d like to lend a hand too. Then I can make myself presentable to meet a movie star.”

  “Sweet dreams, Wife,” said Bud.

  “Sweet dreams, Husband.” I closed my eyes and allowed my entire body to relax into the sumptuous mattress.

  I gave it about half an hour, but sleep eluded me, the sneaky way it does when you know you have to get up early. Bud’s snoring was in steam-train mode when I got up and padded to the little seating area outside our bungalow. I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke wreathe in the moonlight. I could hear the surf in the distance and the occasional rustle of a creature in the darkness surrounding me. It was blissfully cool – I’d sweated enough in the past few weeks to last a lifetime.

  I allowed my mind to tiptoe through the events of the day, noting volumes of body language, and the expressions on the faces of my fellow guests as we’d discussed some surprising topics. I’d learned quite a bit about two people, John and Sheila, who’d been known to me for some time. I pressed the stub of my cigarette into the ashtray as I realized that, although I’d spent a fair amount of time with both of them, I didn’t really know them at all.

  Sheila was Jack White’s supportive, homemaker wife – that was that; John Silver was something high-up in some sort of international secret service thingy, and had worked on cases with Bud in the past – something about which neither of them could speak openly. Siblings and ex-wives had never entered any of my conversations with either of them,
and I challenged myself to wonder why that was the case. I answered myself that it was probably because I’d never asked them any personal questions. I rationalized that there was a pretty good reason for me not to have done that in John’s case because he was more of a “business” acquaintance. But Sheila? Did I really not care at all about a friend’s personal circumstances? I admitted, silently, that I didn’t. People don’t interest me a great deal, unless I need to try to work out why they are the way they are, or why they do what they do.

  I care about Bud. How he feels matters to me. But my interest in anyone else is…marginal. Yes, human beings are fascinating, but in an academic way. I’ve always felt the same, even before psychological profiling became my profession.

  I told myself that was my normal, and to stop wasting time metaphorically contemplating my belly button. It’s pointless; I’ve just turned fifty, so I’m not going to change now.

  I shook myself, the way Marty does after he’s been rolling about in the grass, and told myself to focus. To be practical. I decided I’d take the rare opportunity of being completely alone to recollect the scene of Freddie’s death; I reckoned that would help sort out my befuddlement.

  I closed my eyes to the point where everything goes fuzzy and hummed, quietly. That’s what I find helps me recollect my experiences better than anything else.

  I’m walking toward the place Freddie Burkinshaw called home. He doesn’t live in the main house on the estate; that’s made available to paying guests. Instead, he’s set himself up in a tower built in the late 1600s by Sir Henry Morgan, when he was lieutenant governor of Jamaica. Freddie has told me this, and I have viewed the tower from afar; it’s impossible to miss seeing the walkway around its topmost level from almost anywhere on the estate. I quite like the building. It’s quirky. It’s not as elegant, slim, or tall, as the lighthouse at Negril, but it has its own appeal. There’s a squat, square building at the base, above which there are three floors of a round tower.