“What about the shots?” Suki said again.
“And that horrible scream? Was that Angie?” Marla said.
Mortensen bent his head as if in prayer. “The shots were poachers, possibly. The scream—maybe a wounded animal. There’s no physical evidence of shots being fired, you see, only reports. It has been concluded there is no connection between the shots and Ms. Osborne’s death.”
“So thassit?” Mo said. “Now we go off and have . . . live . . . happyeverafter?”
Mortensen’s glance brushed over Mo, the table littered with bottles, and the half-empty bottle in Mo’s hand. “Ms. Osborne died of natural causes, Mr. Hashim,” he said, his voice only a murmur. “We have to go by . . . the medical examiner has to make the call. He has determined that there is no evidence . . . that the death is due to natural causes. I understand how difficult this is for everyone.” He indicated the darkness with another of his gentle gestures. “It’s late. Sometimes rest helps.”
He slipped away to where a few of the other Kandyans were huddled.
“She didn’t think she had to worry about a heart attack,” Marla said. “After the hysterectomy, she made changes. Organic food, biking to work . . .”
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Mo said.
“Any of us could go,” Suki said, looking at the veins in his wrist as if a clot were suddenly going to appear.
By the time Duncan and Grace left the area, it was close to eleven o’clock. The police had left, and the pavilion had emptied. The lights had been turned out, throwing the place into deep shadow.
There was only a bit of moon out, and it did nothing to light their way. They trod cautiously back to their cabin, feeling their way with their feet, trying to stay on the graveled path beyond the kitchen building.
Gravel scattered ahead, and a point of light pierced the darkness.
“Who’s there?” Bent’s voice said sharply. He scanned his penlight over them. Duncan wondered where he’d been; surely he’d not been around when Mortensen announced his news.
“Thank God the cops finally figured it out,” Bent said. He sighed heavily. “We all have to try to be at peace with it, yeah? But in the morning. Now I’m too exhausted.”
“No one’s back there in the pavilion,” Grace said.
“Gotta get Janie’s sweatshirt,” Bent said. “She’s asleep, but she’ll want it in the morning.”
“Forgot mine under the bench back there,” Grace said.
“I’ll drop it at your cabin,” Bent said. The patter of his feet crunching the gravel and the bobbing light indicated that he had broken into a jog. Even now, he has the energy to run, Duncan thought.
“He was in his cabin working, I bet,” Grace said. “Even with all this, he can’t put his work aside.”
4
GRACE
Sunday
“Some weekend,” Duncan said as he steered their old Volkswagen Jetta out of the lot.
Grace rolled down the manual window, turning the wonky handle carefully. She leaned against the headrest and breathed in the smell of damp grass.
Duncan took one hand off the wheel to smooth her hair. “You’re doing okay?”
“At least it’s behind us,” Grace said. The flies in rack thirty-seven were waiting, their ovaries ripe for the picking, but she was in no mood to resume her work. Once she got to the lab, she’d have to settle down. So much to do, and so little time. A normal lifespan was short enough, but there was no guarantee anyone would have even that.
They drove in silence through Ridgeville, which seemed oddly deserted for a Sunday morning. Grace watched the trunks of silver oaks pass by in a blur, then a vast cemetery studded with rows of somber headstones, like outsize teeth. A scarecrow loomed in a neighboring field, raggedy black robes flapping from its outstretched arms.
Angie’s voicemail message kept digging into her thoughts. She wished she could tell Duncan the whole story. Or what she remembered of it. But that couldn’t happen. Certainly now wasn’t the time, when he was already demoralized. It seemed like ages ago, but it had not even been a month since he had been so unexpectedly laid off from St. Casilda College. The arbitrariness of the layoff had been the hardest part of it for him. Grace knew he had to be thinking of the value of the sacrifice he’d made for her career, but he would never bring that up. Not directly at least.
All she could do was make sure he had a shot at a good career now. “What time do we have to be at the thing tonight?” she said.
He turned to look at her, the sun glinting off his rimless glasses. “You still want to go?”
“We should,” Grace said. “Because you’re starting tomorrow. Bent seemed to think it was important.”
“I think it’s a big party. No one even knows who I am.”
“Apparently this Hammond cares about entertaining his employees.”
Duncan sighed. “I hope the job’s going to be okay. At least Bent seems a decent sort.”
“He’s got his pluses,” Grace said.
“Not even a flicker there?” Duncan said, his eyes on the road ahead. “A long time ago maybe, but still . . . He’s a charismatic guy.”
“Give me a break,” Grace said. “That would be like me asking you about Lara.”
A faint grin appeared on Duncan’s face as he looked over at her. His eyes looked more green than blue in this light. His tan had deepened over the weekend. “Not quite the same. Bent doesn’t look thirty pounds heavier than he is in your college pictures. And Lara and I didn’t go back and forth, on and off. That was strictly a high school romance.” He cleared his throat. “And also.” A sigh. “You’re not about to start a job working with Lara.”
“You’re not working with him,” Grace said. “You don’t even know how often you’ll set eyes on him.” She lay back against the headrest. “On and off . . . Well, a couple of times maybe, but I did get out the second year of college, don’t forget. Anyway, I was thinking yesterday, watching him. I didn’t really know him well at all. I mean, I spent all that time with him, but it seems pretty superficial in retrospect. I don’t know if he was too self-absorbed, or if I was.”
He was silent. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the whoosh of the tires, the roar of displacing air as they sped toward home.
When she awoke, they were at a gas station off Route 23. A wind had sprung up, chilling the car a little.
“Just need some water,” Duncan said, getting out.
Grace reached into the back seat for her sweatshirt. It was only when she pulled it on that she noticed something stiff in its pocket. Sticking her hand inside, she found a cream-colored business card. Written on it in an expansive blue script were the words “Meet me—first bridge, northwest trail. 9 a.m.” On the other side of the card was the silver Cinasat Pharmaceuticals logo, the t in the word suggesting a caduceus. Bent’s name and title were embossed in somber black:
BENTLEY HYLAND III
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING
A familiar feeling of irritation rose in her chest. Bent was still acting as entitled as he’d always been. He must have stuffed the card in the pocket the previous night before hanging the sweatshirt on her cabin door. Clearly he’d wanted to press her again to bring Duncan to the party. It wasn’t only the peremptory tone of the note that annoyed her. Hadn’t it occurred to him that she might sleep late after what had happened? And this was only a party, after all, work related or not. Duncan would be annoyed if he knew Bent had insisted he attend.
Duncan emerged from the station shop, a bottle of water tucked under his arm. Grace stuffed the card back into her sweatshirt pocket, leaned back, and closed her eyes again.
5
DUNCAN
Sunday
“I wonder where my wife is,” Duncan said, hoping to break away from the conversation. The couple he was with, Cherise and Ray, were both in the sales division at Cinasat. He was getting tired of their bragging. For the past fifteen minutes, they had been bombarding him with the minute
details of their extensive wine collection, something he couldn’t care less about. They both seemed to be in their sixties. He couldn’t help wondering what they were going to do with all that wine. They spoke as if they planned to live forever. “Ah, there she is,” he said, sidling away. “I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”
He wound his way through the gaggles of people in their trim tuxedos and flimsy finery, past the open-air bar and the linen-covered table bearing hors d’oeuvres. Grace was in a corner of the garden by a stone bench whose back was a towering eagle, its outstretched wings looking oddly muscular. Standing there, she made a striking figure, with her back ramrod straight and her black hair curling onto her shoulders. She was in a short cherry-red sleeveless dress that she hadn’t worn for years. It looked good on her, he thought, admiring her slender limbs. She worked too hard. She should get the chance to go to more parties like this—but of course, she probably wouldn’t want that. She didn’t look like she was enjoying herself much. Her lips, painted with a redder lipstick than she normally used, were pursed.
When he got to her, she raised her martini glass, her watch sliding down her arm.
“How many million, do you think?” she murmured.
“This place?” He shrugged, looking around the meticulously landscaped grounds, with their blooming magnolia and cherry trees, crimson rhododendrons artfully shaped to look riotous, and clumps of ornamental grasses. Foliage peeped from the crevices of rock walls, and even this early in the year, beds were packed with vivid flowers. The house was a colonial with a pleasant stone facade. He’d seen little of the inside when he’d been escorted along a shadowy hallway into Hammond’s study to sign the last of his employment forms. Mostly he’d passed by closed doors, but he’d caught a glimpse of a dimly lit sitting room with twisted sculptures in dark metal and somber oil paintings. Only one gooseneck desk lamp had lit the study, throwing the odd assortment of objects on the walls into shadow.
“Drug money,” Grace said, rolling her eyes.
“Very funny,” Duncan said. He rattled the ice in his whiskey glass. Could he really do this? Work for a pharmaceutical company?
“Come on, Duncan,” Grace said. “Take a joke.”
“Everyone’s full of jokes,” Duncan said. “You know what Dad said when I called him about the job? ‘You’re leaving devil dancing to dance with the devil?’ Funny. Ha ha.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Grace said. “You’re not leaving anthropology. You’re still going to do the same research. Just for real money.”
“This whole thing is a show, isn’t it?” Duncan said, looking around at the expanse of the lawn, the expensive cut of the men’s jackets, the bar with kinds of whiskeys he had never thought he’d drink. Their dilapidated green Volkswagen had stood out in the line of luxury cars parked in the long driveway. “That’s probably why they invite new employees to these things. Isn’t that what Bent said? They like to show people what they can have if they stay with the company.”
They picked tiny canapés from a tray a passing waiter offered and sipped their drinks. “I haven’t talked to Hammond except for those two minutes in the beginning,” Grace said. “Did you, when you were inside?”
Duncan nodded. “Yes, a while. He seems a bit of a hard-ass, but interesting. Well traveled. All over South America, the Middle East. The Indian subcontinent. And Sri Lanka. He even speaks a little Sinhala. Hard to believe, huh? Not fluent, but enough to get around. He’s been to Sri Lanka several times, apparently.”
“He reminds me of a gecko,” Grace murmured, thoughtfully.
Duncan grinned. “You say the weirdest things. The GEICO gecko?”
“Not the cartoon kind. A real house gecko, like the ones back home. That see-through skin. And the shape of his body. The way he moves his head.”
Not a bad comparison, Duncan thought, remembering the slithery beige lizards with translucent skin that flitted along the walls of Sri Lankan houses.
“He’s not as colorless as he looks,” he said. “Seems very interested in devil dancing, for sure. You should see the devil masks on his study wall. Quite a collection.”
“Typical tourist,” Grace said.
“No, not those gaudy ones they sell to tourists. These are all the real thing. Unusual ones. But definitely Sri Lankan. A few I hadn’t even seen before.”
“Like the one you said was in the Cinasat lobby?”
Duncan nodded. “He said he got them from collectors. I can’t imagine how the collectors got them. People don’t give them away. They seem old, probably from the time the British were there. They look like they came from actual rituals.”
Grace twisted her lips. “What’s with the Sri Lanka fascination anyway?”
“Not just from there,” Duncan said. “He has a couple of Indonesian masks. And some other things from other countries. Daggers and etchings and statues. From Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico. Same as in the Cinasat lobby. I think he’s just interested in other cultures. That’s apparently Cinasat’s big thing. Not just multinational, they keep saying. They have multicultural partners. I still couldn’t get a straight answer about the job, though. No shoptalk, he said.” He rubbed his ring, trying to smile. Every time he tried to get ahold of a clear job description, he got the same message. Later. Always later.
“I’ve only met salespeople here so far,” Grace said. “And two doctors. Medical doctors.”
Duncan bit into a date wrapped in bacon, wishing he didn’t feel so uneasy. Just outside his comfort zone, that was all, he reminded himself. “I’m the only anthropologist here, as far as I can tell.”
“Well, you are,” a voice said, the southern accent thick.
Duncan looked up to find a middle-aged woman standing before them. Her smiling face was framed by wisps of short ash-blond hair. An elaborate necklace that reminded Duncan of a Thai Buddhist temple lay against the heavily freckled skin above her black-and-white floral dress. She was holding the dregs of a martini.
“Duncan, right? Ada, Hammond’s wife. I’m sorry it took me so long to find you,” she said, the bracelets on her wrist jingling as she gestured at the chattering groups scattered around the garden.
Duncan shook her outstretched hand. He could feel little calloused nubs on her palm. “This is my wife, Grace,” he said.
“Well, I’m so pleased to meet you both,” Ada said, her hand on Grace’s back. “Having a good time, I hope.”
Duncan nodded dutifully, although Grace just smiled stiffly, as they both took more canapés from a waiter Ada waved over. “I hear you’re from Sri Lanka,” Ada said to Grace. “And of course, you”—turning to Duncan—“are going to be our new Sri Lankan anthropologist.” She laughed, a high, tinkling sound. “Listen to me! Our! I mean Cinasat’s, of course.” She leaned forward conspiratorially, and Duncan caught a whiff of vodka. “I don’t work for Cinasat. I make jewelry, not drugs!”
Duncan slid his eyes away from Grace, who was looking a little nonplussed. “Was there another anthropologist at Cinasat before I joined?” he said. “I mean, I know there are others who are experts on other countries . . . but Sri Lanka specifically?”
Ada nodded energetically, but her smile faded. “Maybe you know him.” Her face fell further. “Knew him. He was a lovely man. Just lovely. Frank Salgado.” She hailed another passing waiter and replaced her empty glass with a glass of wine.
Duncan stared. “Professor Salgado? University of Peradeniya? I thought he had retired years ago. I knew him way back when I was in Sri Lanka. The last time I talked to him was maybe thirteen, no, fourteen years ago.” He wouldn’t have described Professor Salgado as lovely. Cantankerous was the word he would have used. Salgado had a reputation for being outspoken. At least one person at the university had seemed afraid of him. “He was working here in the US? In New Jersey?”
Ada’s forehead wrinkled. “Well, he was a consultant,” she said. “He came here a couple of times, for dinner.” She shook her head, touching the temple ornaments at her neck. “He b
rought me some lovely stones. From a city called Ratapoorna.”
“Ratnapura,” Grace said. “That’s where a lot of our gems come from.”
Ada turned to her. “That’s what he said. He was going to plan a trip there for me. But now . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“He retired? That’s why Duncan was hired?” Grace said.
“He died, the poor man,” Ada said. “Drowned.”
Duncan stopped in the middle of biting into a shrimp toast. “Whoa. When? Where?”
“I know, it’s too terrible to think about,” Ada said. “Somewhere in Sri Lanka. They found his body washed up on a beach. A few weeks ago.” She sipped from her glass, shaking her head. “Very sad.”
“Are you mourning the cat again?” Hammond said, appearing beside her. He rubbed Ada’s back. “Ada was close to that cat. But she was old.”
Duncan was struck briefly by how incongruously austere Hammond looked next to his wife, with the close cut of his graying hair at the sides of his narrow, balding head and the pencil line of beard edging the transparent pallor of his lean face. He was a slight man, half a head shorter than his wife.
Ada turned to him, her glass clutched to her chest. “Not the cat, dear. I was telling them about Frank Salgado.”
Hammond’s eyes sharpened, flicking over the wineglass in her hand. “I’m sure they don’t want to hear about that,” he said.
“I didn’t know Salgado was working with you,” Duncan said.
Hammond turned to him abruptly, his gray eyes piercing. “You knew him?”
“Back in the day,” Duncan said.
Hammond paused, swirling the whiskey in his tumbler. “Who would have thought. A coincidence,” he said.
“Not really,” Duncan said. “Not many anthropologists there. And very few who’ve written anything on devil dancing. Even Salgado’s work in that area was a long time ago. Back in the seventies. What was he doing for Cinasat?”
Hammond held his whiskey up to the light. “A good man,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll hear about his contributions once you start working. Bentley can catch you up.” He turned away from them to scan the deck leading to the house. “Speaking of Bentley . . . I have to go and see him.”
The Mask Collectors Page 3