"Watch yourself," Carver said, and turned away. Bellinger nodded to him. "We'll get 'em." He joined his partner, and they headed to their car.
Pierce had parked on the other side of the building, and as he moved around the side of the chapel, he saw Tina standing beside his car. He sensed another confrontation in the offing, and that was the last thing he wanted. He didn't need it, not now, not ever.
"I heard you were in jail," she said coolly.
"I didn't do it; I've been cleared."
She shook her dark mane of hair off her shoulder, and her brown eyes met his gaze. Her black dress hugged her hour-glass figure; Pierce found her strangely alluring. He felt the temptation to patch things up and begin the same old cycle one more time. "You just expect me to take your word for it?" she said.
"That and the fact that I was released with no charges filed." He reached into his coat pocket, took out the white bag and held it up. "Juana must believe me. She gave me this for protection."
He smiled, but Tina didn't laugh. She stared at the bag, then shifted her focus to him. "Put it away. And do not make fun of it. If Tia Juana prepared that for you, she must know you are in danger."
He looked at the bag, felt it again, then dropped it back into his pocket. "What's in it?"
"For protection? Probably ajo, yerbabuena, perejil." Just common herbs, he thought; garlic, peppermint leaves, and parsley.
"Keep it on you all the time, even if you do not believe."
"Okay. I'll even believe I'll be protected. How's that?"
She nodded. "Nicky, listen, I know you did not kill Fuego. He stopped by the library the day he was killed."
"He did?"
She reached into her purse and took out an envelope. "I did not see him, but he must have dropped this in the book-return slot. It was found there."
The envelope had been torn open and taped closed. Tina's name was written on the front, and suddenly Pierce knew what Fuego meant when he told Leni he was going to check out a book. He was going to the library to deliver the envelope. "What time was that?"
"I got it about an hour after you ripped my phone off the wall. I thought it was from you, and almost threw it away I was so mad." She glared at him as she spoke. "You really embarrassed me with that stunt."
He didn't respond. "Can I see it?"
"If you promise me something."
"What?" He didn't want to make any promises.
"That you won't be mad at me for not turning the letter over to the police. I don't want the police bothering Tia Juana with questions, and I wanted to give it to you in person."
"Yeah." Another one of her carrots.
She handed him the envelope, and he carefully pulled back the tape and slipped out a sheet of paper. He read the note.
TINA—GIVE THIS TO NICK. IT'S IMPORTANT.
Nick—Left a message on your recorder. This is just in case something happens, and it might. I'm being followed. A long time ago, Juana, you know my aunt, the santera, told me to watch out when a dark woman named Mercedes followed me. Never knew until now what she meant. The dark woman is a car. Anyhow, I didn't give up on the Andrews stuff. You know how I am. I kept looking for the connection. Found it, too. You've got to talk to her."
The message ended with a name and address. Pierce refolded the paper and slipped it into the envelope. Now he knew that someone must have broken into his office and erased his messages.
"You ever heard of this woman, Marisol Puente?" he asked Tina.
She shook her head. "I was tempted to go see her myself, but I thought it was better to leave it to you."
He nodded, starting to feel uneasy as she moved closer to him.
"Are we still going to be friends, Nicky? I do not want you mad at me."
"I'm not mad at you."
She reached for his hand, squeezed his fingers. "We worked things out before, you know."
A party of mourners passed by and looked curiously at them. "No, we didn't. We just buried it Tina, and acted like everything was okay. It wasn't. It's not. It's over. We are not getting back together."
Tina dropped his hand. Her eyes went cold and hard; the corners of her mouth plunged. He expected another outburst. She would blast him about his behavior in the library. She would scream about his insensitivity. He looked around to see who would hear her. But she surprised him.
"Suit yourself." Her voice was calm. "I do not need this abuse anymore. You have had your last chance. Don't expect any more help from me." She turned on her heel and walked away.
Well, this was the place to end it, he thought—at a funeral, with both of them dressed in black.
Half an hour later, Pierce stood in the doorway of Elise's office at the University of Miami. There was no mistaking the origin of her focus of study. The office was decorated with colorful woven huipiles. Ceramic artifacts lined a shelf, and a circular wooden Mayan calendar, like the one that had been destroyed in her house, hung on the wall.
She was seated at her desk, which looked orderly in comparison to Redington's. She was finished with classes for the quarter, but had told him she still had administrative work to complete. The look on her face said she didn't appreciate being interrupted. But she was in danger; he had to warn her.
"Funeral's over?"
He nodded, closed the door, and quickly explained what Carver had told him. She listened quietly until he was finished. "Of course, I knew Steve was working with the DEA on drug-related cases, but . . ." Her voice wavered as she attempted to maintain her composure, but tears welled in her eyes. Her lower lip quivered.
"Oh, Christ, Nick. The bastard." She looked down, raised a hand to her forehead.
He moved around her desk, wanted to touch her, stroke her hair, something. But he didn't. "I'm sorry."
"God, I've been such an idiot."
So have I. "It's better that you know."
"Of course it is. It's just that I feel like I've been assaulted."
"I know what you mean. I figured you wrong."
She stood up, smiled, and wiped her eyes. "God, what am I going to do if Steve shows up?"
"Don't let on that you know anything." He thought a moment. "How about if I come over again tonight? You mind?"
"Of course not."
He reached out, touched her arm. "I'll call you."
She hugged him, pressing her face into the nook of his shoulder and neck. Her body, snug against his, felt like a missing part that had suddenly found its home. They held the embrace long past a friendly good-bye; and when they separated, Pierce felt slightly flushed. His heart pounded and ached for what wasn't yet. But still might be.
Chapter 27
Pierce almost missed Marisol Puente's house. It was set back from the road under the folds of a pair of trees whose branches were weighted with mangos. Even though she lived just a few blocks from Calle Ocho, the busy commercial hub of Miami's Little Havana, you'd never know it here. Her backyard was a tropical garden, a lush, verdant sanctuary. A self-contained world, Pierce thought as he knocked at the side door.
The dark-eyed woman who answered gazed warily at him. Her frizzy black hair flowed over her shoulders. She wore khaki shorts and a black T-shirt and wore several gold necklaces, the longest of them with a cross dangling from it. She was broad-shouldered, large-boned, neither slender nor chunky. Her skin was a deep tan, and it was difficult to tell her age. She could be thirty-five or a dozen years older.
"Are you Marisol Puente?"
"What can I do for you?"
"My name is Nicholas Pierce. I'm here about Fuego."
"Who? I don't understand." She spoke with a slight Spanish accent, and he sensed fear in her voice.
"Felix Ferraro. I think you know him."
She took a step back and started to close the door. "I don't think I want to talk to you, Mr. Pierce."
"Wait, Please." He stuck his foot in the door. "It's important. Fuego is dead; I went to his funeral this morning."
"I know he's dead, and it's because he
was snoopy. For your own good, please leave. Now."
"Listen, I'm a private investigator. I hired Fuego to investigate Raymond Andrews. I want to know what you told him."
She paused, considered what he said. "Why? Why did you hire him to do that?"
"I've been working for Andrews, and now I've got a lot of questions about him. I need to know what you told Fuego. It's very important."
She looked uncertain, then resigned. "Oh, God. I don't know. Guess it doesn't matter now. I knew Andrews would find me someday."
"This conversation will go no further than the two of us."
She stepped back from the door, then led him into a tidy living room the size of a postage stamp. It was packed with odds and ends—books, a collection of dolls, paintings, sculptures. Everything was crowded together, yet somehow orderly.
She perched at the edge of a wooden chair and watched him like a predator. Her feet were bare, her back was as rigid as an iron bar, and her hands rested lightly in her lap. She had the grace of a dancer. He, on the other hand, felt like an oaf as he lowered himself into a rocker and nearly toppled over backward. "Be careful in that chair," she said. Then: "So what do you know about me?"
"The day Fuego died he left your name and address in an envelope for me. That's all I know, except that he'd been looking for someone named Marisol who had known Andrews's wife."
He decided not to mention that he'd heard about her relationship with Loften. Not yet. "What did you tell Fuego that he thought was so important?"
"That Ginger died because she knew too much."
"What do you mean?"
Marisol didn't reply immediately. She breathed deeply, exhaled; he was reminded of Redington's relaxation exercise. "Ginger hired me to find out how her husband spent his time away from home."
"Hired you?"
"Yes, I was a private investigator."
"But no longer?"
"I quit after that case. I had had enough."
Pierce looked down at several painted stones that lay on end tables next to him. He picked up one of them and saw the eyes and nose and realized it was an animal. "So you're an exile from your homeland as well as your profession."
"I don't consider myself an exile in either sense. Miami is my home. As for the P.I. work"—she shook her head—"that case convinced me it was time for me to move on. I'm a commercial artist."
"If Mrs. Andrews died because she knew too much, you must also know too much. How come you're alive and she isn't?"
"Because I'm cautious. I respect the threat that Raymond Andrews represents. Something you apparently aren't concerned about."
"But you talked to Fuego."
"Yes. I confided in him. Maybe it was because we both grew up in Santa Clara, and shared memories of our childhood in Cuba."
"You knew him in Cuba?"
"No, and we probably would never have met, either. My father was a doctor, his was a storekeeper. But look what happened to him." She touched the gold cross dangling from her neck and bowed her head. "Dios lo bendiga."
When she looked up, Pierce asked why Ginger had wanted her husband followed.
"He was a secretive man, always going off on trips, and rarely taking her. She was sure he was having an affair and wanted to document it for a divorce case."
"Did you find another woman?"
"No, I did not." She was answering his questions, but offering nothing beyond a minimal response.
"Did you find anything suspicious?"
"I found a lot that was suspicious about him. But there was no other woman as far as I could tell. I told Mrs. Andrews that."
"Was she satisfied?"
"For a short time, yes. Then one day, she took a telephone call for her husband from an antique dealer in Edinburgh, Scotland. He told her to tell Mr. Andrews that his three-million-dollar offer for the skull did not interest him. That baffled her, because she'd never heard him say a word about spending millions on a skull."
Pierce nodded, doing his best to avoid indicating that he knew anything about the skull. "Did she ask him about the call?"
"Yes. He acted like he didn't know what she was talking about. A couple of days later she asked me to see what I could find out."
"And what did you find?"
"I visited the antique dealer and told him I was there about the skull. He assumed I represented Andrews and got angry. He said he wasn't selling the crystal skull for any price, and to tell Andrews to stop bothering him. By the time I left, I realized that owning this skull was the consuming passion of Mr. Andrews's life. That was the other woman."
"Why did he want it?"
"What're you going to do with this information? Get me killed, get yourself killed, or get both of us killed?"
Some choice, he thought. "If I get enough evidence that he's involved in a murder, I'll take it to the authorities."
She stood up, pacing the room. She stopped in front of him; her features were relaxed, resigned. "I don't know if that'll do any good, but I'll help you. I've been blessed that I've lived this long in peace without him finding me."
"Like I said, I'm not going to tell Andrews, and I made sure I wasn't followed. If he's guilty of murder, the police will protect you."
She nodded, but didn't look convinced. "The reason he wants the skull is that he feels it's powerful, that it would keep him from growing old."
He gazed after her as she meandered about the room. "How would it do that?"
"There's a legend that involves two skulls. He and his inner circle are set on obtaining both. He believes that by fulfilling this legend he will conquer death like the ancient gods. In fact, you could say he expects to become one of them himself."
Possessed by a myth, Pierce thought, recalling Redington's paper. "What is this inner circle?"
"It's part of a secret organization. They go by the name Noster Mundus."
"I've heard about it."
"Well, the inner circle is like a group of alchemists. That's the only way I can describe them. Their main work, they call it the opus alchemicum, is transformation to god-man through the prima materia—the first matter—the crystal skulls." She touched her cross again. "I am a religious person, and to me what they are doing is the devil's work."
"How did you find out about it?"
"Partly on my own, and through the help of someone in the inner circle."
"Who?"
"Someone I met through Ginger. She thought he might know something about the skull."
"Would this person talk to me, or the police?"
"No, Paul is dead. He was murdered."
"Paul Loften?"
"You know him?"
I was in his office when he was shot," he said, and explained the circumstances.
Marisol sat down again, closed her eyes as she spoke.
"My God. Now I understand why Andrews didn't kill him earlier. He used him to get the skull."
"I don't understand. Why would he have killed him earlier?"
"Because he thought Paul had told Ginger too much about the scroll."
Pierce frowned, shook his head. "Did you say scroll? What scroll?"
She studied him a moment. "You don't know about it? It's a silver scroll, an ancient document. Paul showed it to Andrews. That was ten years ago, and a short time later, Noster Mundus was formed and Andrews became interested in crystal skulls."
He remembered the scroll in the Noster Mundus emblem. "What does the scroll say?"
"It's devil's work about the two crystal skulls and immortality."
"Where is it?"
"Paul told me it was kept in Europe, somewhere near Bayonne, or just over the border, in Spain."
"Why would Andrews believe that what the scroll said was valid?"
"Maybe because of the source. Paul said that the scroll was written by Plato—that no one else could have written so beautifully. He said it was a lost dialogue, and that it was incredibly important."
"Plato?"
"That's right."
Pi
erce recalled the book on Plato he'd seen in Andrews's study and his scrawlings in the margin of the one he'd taken off the shelf. "But did Loften also believe this stuff about immortality?"
"Paul's interests were professional. He wanted to make the scroll public, but he promised Andrews that he wouldn't reveal its contents until the two skulls were together. In return, Andrews became a major donor to the museum."
"Why did Loften tell you all this?"
She picked up one of the painted rocks, nervously brushed the dust from it. "I got to know him by forming a liaison with him."
Pierce assumed she meant she'd had an affair with him.
"Gradually, he confided in me. I told Ginger everything. Her mistake was in confronting her husband with some of it. Andrews knew the information must have come from Paul—and since he knew Paul was having a love affair, he wrongly assumed it was with his own wife."
"Christ. She kept you out of it?"
"She denied having an affair with Loften when Andrews accused her of it. But he didn't believe her. I was very fortunate, because she never told him anything about me. She didn't care if he believed her or not. She just wanted out of the marriage. She didn't want to be married to someone who had such a strange and secret life, and who was so heedless of her existence."
"Then she gave herself a fatal injection," Pierce said.
"I don't believe that. She called me at ten the morning after he accused her of adultery. She said she was fine, but was afraid of him. She'd told him the marriage was over. I advised her to get out of there, to meet me for lunch. She agreed, but never showed up. She died before noon."
"If you thought he did it, how could you let him get away with it?"
Her glance was sharp. "You think I'm proud of that, Mr. Pierce? I was terrified. I kept thinking he was going to find out from Paul that I'd told Ginger about her husband's secret life. But nothing happened. He never confronted Paul. He was saving him."
"You stopped seeing Loften?"
"Yes, I loved him, but it was too dangerous. I never saw him again. I tried to forget him and all that happened. But I've always felt that someone like Fuego or you would show up at my door someday and Andrews would find out." She smiled ruefully. "I'm not surprised it happened now. For some reason, Andrews always thought that his quest would be completed this year. In fact, this very week."
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