Human Sacrifice

by Cindy L Hull

  “I can’t imagine anyone I know having a reason to harm these people. These are my friends and colleagues.”

  “One of whom is dead.”

  They crossed the main avenue and turned down a quiet side street past a series of tourist shops. Tonight, she barely noticed her surroundings.

  “Can you tell me about Brad?” Roberto prodded.

  She sighed in resignation and explained how Brad came to be the director of the new Mayanist Program.

  “Is he a good director?”

  Claire paused just long enough to pique Roberto’s interest. “But…?” he coaxed.

  “Brad doesn’t like dissent. Academics are notorious for talking an idea to death. Brad just decides, and then pushes his plans on the faculty. It doesn’t go over well with everyone.”

  “Like Doctor Ramirez’s loan to your museum?”

  “Yes, he was quite insistent that we accept the offer.”

  “Do Brad and Jamal get along?”

  “Yes, mainly because Jamal is a willing protégé.”

  “You told me earlier that Brad and Jamal left the breakfast table Monday morning after Cody arrived.” When Claire nodded, he asked, “Do you remember what time this was?”

  “It must have been shortly after nine o’clock. Sessions usually start at eight-thirty, but none of us seemed to be in the mood to attend, after what happened to Paul.”

  “Do you know where Brad and Jamal went after they left the table?”

  Claire thought a moment. “George said Brad went to the beach to work on his speech. I have no idea where Jamal went.” She stopped walking. “That means neither of them could have killed Benito.”

  “But Brad could have gone to Motul,” Salinas said. They paused at an intersection, waiting to cross. “Can you think of any reason Brad might have to hurt Tanya, besides the fact that she wanted to be curator?”

  Claire felt her temper rise under his interrogation. She turned to look at him. “I already told you I have no reason to suspect him.” Her words came out more sharply than she had intended. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “This is hard for me.”

  They approached a small, brightly lit plaza lined with boutiques.

  “Do you suspect Brad?” Claire asked.

  “I am starting with him. Don’t worry. I have questions about others, including you.” He smiled down at her. Claire wished she could turn and run. He seemed to sense this and took her arm, maneuvering her through the growing flow of evening walkers and into an intimate café, La Vainilla.

  The waiter seated them by a window where they could watch people strolling by. He brought them water and menus and left them to make their decision.

  Roberto picked up his menu but looked at Claire instead. “What do you know about Doctor Ramirez?”

  “Very little,” Claire said. “I’ve researched his businesses, and it seems he and his family have become very wealthy buying and selling antiquities.” She opened her menu but returned her gaze to the detective. “But you know all this,” she added impatiently.

  Roberto put his menu down and tapped his fingers on the table. “Do you know him personally? Have you had any interactions with him?”

  Claire crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “What do you mean?”

  Roberto shrugged and opened his menu. “Did you speak with him at the reception?”

  “We spoke briefly. The reason is personal.”

  Roberto raised his eyebrows slightly and took a sip of water.

  “He offered me a job,” she confessed. His silence indicated he already knew this also. She pretended to read her menu. “I think he was flattering me, but I don’t know why.”

  “Did Eduardo know Tanya?”

  “I don’t think he knew her at all.”

  Roberto shrugged. “Can you tell me anything about the sale of artifacts?”

  Claire reached for her water glass. “It’s not my area of expertise. I am a cultural anthropologist. But I have learned that Mexican laws and American Customs laws are very strict.”

  Roberto asked, “Do you think any of your colleagues would be interested in antiquities?”

  Claire considered. “I don’t think Brad is interested in artifacts, except in the ritual sense—the religious items used in ceremonies. Jamal is interested in medicinal herbs and healing, not artifacts. Paul, however, was interested in artifacts, and he knew local vendors. Eduardo is interested in artifacts…they’re his life…but I know nothing about his connections with local vendors.”

  “Paul wrote the initials “ER” in his notebook,” Roberto reasoned.

  Claire was silent a moment, then said, “Eduardo drives a black rental car. I saw him return to the hotel early Monday morning.”

  “Ah,” responded Roberto.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  They ordered wine and dinner, though Claire had lost her appetite. Claire looked through the window at the diners seated outdoors. Streetlights threw a shadow on a small diner across the plaza. She watched as an elderly tourist couple, packages in hand, stopped to look at the Spanish-language menu posted on the door, but moved on. They reminded her of the Stuarts.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Claire turned to Salinas, who held his wineglass up to her. She hadn’t been aware of its arrival at the table.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Salud.”

  They sipped their wine before Roberto continued his interrogation. “Can you tell me about Jamal?”

  “I like Jamal,” she said. “I can’t imagine him harming anyone, and I can’t believe either he or Brad could have gone to Motul before breakfast…and they were at breakfast.”

  “Yet a black man and a man in a straw hat were seen in Motul, and we don’t yet know when Benito was killed,” Roberto countered. “However, your friend Jamal may have an alibi for Monday morning after all.”

  Claire looked up quickly. “What?”

  “I don’t know what he did before breakfast, but after breakfast he tried to steal a computer from Paul and Cody’s room.”

  Claire’s dark eyes widened. “Paul’s computer?” She frowned in thought. “It was already stolen.”

  “But, as you said before, he did run away after the program instead of following the crowd. Perhaps he wanted to hide something on the bus, quickly. He had a backpack, correct?”

  Claire thought. “Yes, but if he had the computer, why go into the hotel room?”

  “He may have been looking for something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Perhaps a notebook or some other electronic device—a tablet perhaps? I am not convinced by Jamal’s statement.”

  The waiter arrived with the food and warmed tortillas, and conversation paused as they took in the spicy aroma of the pollo pibil that enveloped them. They unwrapped the meat from the banana leaves and savored the first bites of moist roasted chicken, black beans, and wild rice.

  “I’ve been thinking about the timeline,” Roberto said after a few minutes. “The times are critical.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out his notebook. “According to the written statements, you saw Paul and Cody at the pyramid around six-thirty, then went to the bleachers where George and Madge joined you around six-forty-five. Jamal entered the site around six-fifty-five and reported seeing Cody run back to the Cultural Center just after seven, but he didn’t report seeing Paul at the pyramid.”

  Roberto read on. “It seems that Brad and Laura walked to the site together between six-fifteen and six-thirty. They separated at the ball court. Neither mentioned seeing Paul or Cody.”

  “But they must have,” Claire said. “I saw them at six-thirty and Jamal saw Cody at seven…unless they had climbed the pyramid.”

  “Or were on the opposite side. It is a massive structure, and neither Brad nor Laura indicated which path they took
around the pyramid, right or left.”

  Claire asked, “What about Eduardo?”

  “Eduardo took a later shuttle, arrived around six-thirty and went directly into the site. He said he didn’t see anyone but joined up with Brad near the Nunnery around seven o’clock or a little later.”

  He looked at his notes again. “According to Tanya, she left Jamal behind at the Cultural Center. She didn’t mention seeing Paul and Cody, but said she saw Brad and Eduardo near the Nunnery. She arrived in the seats before them. Brad and Eduardo joined you just before the show started at seven-fifteen, Mexican time.”

  “Yes,” Claire responded. “So, no one claims to have seen Paul after six-forty-five?”

  “I meant to talk to Tanya again,” Roberto said. “Her timing seemed critical to understanding when he might have died…but…I didn’t talk to her in time.”

  “And what she saw might be the cause of her death.”

  “Unless she killed Paul herself,” Roberto reminded her.

  “But she told Cody she didn’t believe him,” Claire countered.

  “That could mean anything…or nothing.”

  “It’s hard to believe that no one else saw them at the pyramid.”

  Roberto shrugged. “It was dusk, and people are looking ahead or at their feet, not up at the pyramid. Actually,” he said, “we did a little experiment.”

  “We?”

  “Sergeant Garza and I…actually Sergeant Garza conducted the experiment. I held the stopwatch.”

  “Why make her do it?”

  “We needed to know if a woman could climb the back stairs of the pyramid and how long it would take.” He shrugged. “She climbed to the second level, walked around it, and descended in about ten minutes. Assuming a short discussion or argument, the entire encounter could have been accomplished in fifteen minutes.”

  “Sergeant Garza is in good shape,” Claire said.

  “And a saint, she tells me.”

  “That means it’s possible that no one would notice them up there, but who could have done it?”

  Roberto considered. “Tanya, Brad, or Eduardo if their stated times are off, or Jamal if he lied about the time he entered and his claim that he saw Cody run from the site.”

  “Or Laura, or Cody,” Claire said, then stopped. “When Tanya joined us, she borrowed Madge’s binoculars. She might have seen who killed Paul.”

  “But in her statement, she didn’t report seeing Paul.” Salinas shuffled through his notebook. “But she may have told someone else.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Roberto pushed his empty plate away and finished his wine. “I’d like to go back to the notebook.”

  Claire fumbled with her empty wine glass. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you immediately. I intended to take it to you the next day.” She smiled. “You are quite intimidating, you know…in two languages.”

  He laughed. “That’s my job.”

  “What else have you learned from Paul’s notes?”

  “There was something strange.” Roberto tented his fingers and looked intently at Claire. “Paul wrote notes on everyone, including Eduardo, but nothing on you, except your initials on a list of possible buyers. You must be a saint too, like Sergeant Garza.”

  “Hardly,” Claire said.

  He watched her closely. “It seems that several pages had been carefully ripped out. It was a composition notebook, not a spiral, you recall.” Claire did not respond, so he continued, “Entences, my question is, who did that and why?”

  “And your answer?”

  “The obvious answer is that you might have done it. You might not have wanted me to see what devious act you had committed…stealing, flirting with police officers…”

  He paused, raising his eyebrows. “In fact,” he said, “the seriousness of the offense might not matter. The question is, what would one do to keep information about oneself from becoming public? It could be as simple as a drunk-driving charge for a politician, or sex with a prostitute for a priest.” Roberto blushed as he said this. “I am sorry—I am being too familiar with you.”

  Claire bit her lip to still her rising frustration. “Do you think I sat upstairs slicing pages from his notebook with a razor blade?”

  Roberto sat back, silent, then smiled. “Did you?”

  Claire suddenly laughed at the thought, “I understand what you’re saying, but I didn’t do it.”

  To his credit, Salinas looked apologetic. “I didn’t mean to accuse you. I was merely providing insight into the mind of a detective.”

  Outside, the air had cooled, but the stars shone brightly above them. As they walked toward the main plaza, Roberto asked, “If there had been a page for you in the notebook, what might be on it?”

  Claire looked up at him sharply. “I really don’t know, other than his suspicion that I might have been involved with Don Benito.” She paused. “But Paul did ask me about my book. He gave me a backward compliment…”

  “Meaning?”

  “How refreshing that I was honest about personal conflicts in my research, like rejecting my faith and how that might have affected my objectivity.”

  “Do you have a problem with the Church? Are you still Catholic?”

  Claire knew that the questions had layered meanings. “I am nominally Catholic, but my feelings about the church are complicated.” She could feel his eyes on her as they walked, but she looked ahead, avoiding his eyes. “I am also an anthropologist, and our views on religion are based on a relativistic perspective, not one that privileges one religion over another.”

  “Yes, I know.” He paused, and Claire turned to look at him. “Did I tell you my daughter is studying anthropology, and that you have met her?”

  Claire tried to imagine the many university students she had talked to over the past days. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He shrugged and pulled her arm into the crook of his elbow. “She didn’t want me to. And frankly, I didn’t want her to get involved with your group.” Claire looked up at him to see if he was joking. His wry sense of humor unsettled her.

  “Did you set her out to spy on us?” She tried to match his tone.

  “Not really, but Marta found out who you were.” He smiled again. “You signed her book.”

  Claire laughed. “I remember her. She seemed familiar. Now, I know why.” She breathed in the cool night air. “I would love to meet Marta.”

  “Perhaps when this is over?”

  “I would like that. Has she helped you in the investigation?”

  “In some ways. No one notices the students who are hanging around, but the students are aware of the professionals.”

  They reached the plaza and sat on a metal bench near a group of jewelry vendors who had lain their handicrafts on a large blanket on the walkway.

  Salinas looked to Claire. “We found Paul’s computer, by the way. Several young boys found it in a roadside dump and tried to sell it at a pawn shop in Merida.”

  “Do people go through dumps like that?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s amazing what wealthy people, especially Americans, throw away. Anyway, we had an alert out to pawn and resale shops for computers, and we got a call.”

  “Did you find anything on it?”

  “The files had been deleted. We have computer forensics working on it, but it will take time. We can’t find a computer genius in every eighth-grade classroom like you can in the United States.” He smiled at her.

  Claire asked, “What have you found on Tanya’s computer? I assume her files are being examined.”

  “We’ll know more tomorrow. I hope to have this solved very soon.”

  Claire frowned. “It looks a long way from being solved from my end.”

  Roberto did not respond to her comment but turned toward her. “I would like to visit Dzab and Tixbe to
morrow. Will you come with me?”

  Claire tried to hide her shock. “If it’s appropriate, I would like that.”

  “Can I pick you up in Yaxpec tomorrow at eight o’clock?”

  Claire did not want her friends to see a man pull up to her compadres’ house early in the morning. It would cause all kinds of speculation. “No. I’ll meet you at Café Flor. I need to return to Merida by four o’clock tomorrow for Jamal’s presentation, and the drive will be shorter from here. I keep forgetting that there is a conference going on.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Thursday Morning

  Claire sat in a booth at Café Flor, staring at her coffee, her breakfast barely touched.

  “Where are you?” asked Roberto, his plate scraped clean, his coffee cup empty.

  “In Yaxpec,” Claire admitted. “It’s hard to leave.”

  “Have you considered moving to Merida? You could teach at the university. It might be a good change for you.”

  “I have thought about it actually.” She sipped her cold coffee. “Now that Cristina is on her own, I could. But I need to think of my parents. They’re getting older.”

  “It is a difficult decision,” he agreed, “and my reasons are selfish.”

  Claire fingered her necklace. Salinas sighed heavily and motioned to the waitress. “Are you ready to visit Jamal’s village?”

  An abandoned hacienda stood at the outskirts of Dzab, a tiny village, seemingly lost in time. Several cement S-shaped lovers’ seats and a dangerous-looking play set dominated the small plaza where vigorous weeds grew between the cracks in the pavement. Wood and thatch houses branched out from the plaza in a series of two-track roads, and the electrical wires started at the plaza and ended not too far away.

  What Dzab lacked in amenities, it gained in authenticity. Women wearing huipiles and colorful shawls, children or grandchildren in tow, converged on an open market near the plaza. They carried henequen-fiber tote bags that would soon be filled with the fresh foods they needed to prepare the daily meals. The men had disappeared to their jobs, and the plaza belonged to the women and children.