One Grave Less

by Beverly Connor

  One good thing, she thought, as she left the clearing and drove into the jungle, again looking for something she could pretend was a road, was that the closer they got to Benjamin Constant, the more villages they would run across where they could perhaps find help, perhaps get gas, maybe some good directions. Maybe they would stumble upon a tourist boat on one of the rivers. Something.

  “You doing okay, Rosetta?” asked Maria.

  Rosetta nodded. “That was close,” she said.

  “Yes, it was, but we have been pretty lucky for most of our trip,” said Maria.

  Rosetta looked over at her. “What would you call unlucky?”

  Maria smiled. “How about we eat something? Do we have any bars left, or do we need to find a fruit tree?”

  “We have some bars left,” said Rosetta. She dug down in her backpack and came up with a bar. “Maybe we should split what’s left,” she said. “Just eat a little. I have some fruit too. I took it at dinner last night.”

  “That’s a good plan,” said Maria.

  Rosetta broke the bar so Maria had the larger piece.

  “You take more,” said Maria.

  “But you’re bigger,” said Rosetta.

  “Right now it’s one for all and all for one,” said Maria. “You need to eat too. You’re the thinker.”

  Rosetta smiled and broke off another piece. They ate the bar in silence. Maria chewed slowly, savoring the taste. When the bars were gone they would be hunting and gathering for their food.

  “You want to hear the rest of Harry Potter?” said Maria.

  Rosetta nodded. “I wish we were magic.”

  “Me too.” Maria resumed the story where she had left off—Harry Potter and his friends trying to get past the three-headed dog.

  As she told Rosetta the story, Maria constantly watched her rearview mirror, and she watched out the side windows and as far ahead as she could see. She noticed that Rosetta did too.

  They were going too slow, but they were lucky to be going at all. They were lucky they were in a place where most of the flora was in the canopy and not on the ground.

  Then the jungle was thick again. Leafy branches and fronds pushed against the truck, slapping the sides. More than once she came across a fallen tree or limb that she had to drive around. She was getting tired but tried not to show it.

  Abruptly, they broke through the thick growth into an open area that had been clear cut—and there was a road, a logging road. Relief. They could go faster. At least it wouldn’t be such hard driving.

  “Let’s take a quick bathroom stop,” said Maria.

  They were back in the truck and moving in less than three minutes. Neither wanted to linger. Both were scared.

  Maria tried to be cheerful. She put as much excitement in her voice as she could muster as she told the continuing story of Harry Potter.

  “When we get you home, maybe we can rent the movie and watch it,” said Maria.

  Rosetta nodded. “I would like that. You think Mama has seen it?”

  “A lot of people have. Does she like fantasy?” asked Maria. “You said she likes science fiction.”

  “I think she likes fantasy,” said Rosetta.

  The little girl was craning her neck, looking for danger. It squeezed Maria’s heart to see her always scared.

  The red dirt logging road was the widest and smoothest road they had been on, but even it was primitive—sometimes washed and rutted in places. Good thing it wasn’t the rainy season yet. Maria wasn’t sure she could get the truck through this road if it were wet.

  “Your mama will want to see the movie with you, anyway,” said Maria. “There are a lot of fun movies that she’s going to want to watch with you.”

  Several miles passed before Maria had to make another travel decision. They came to a fork in the road. The smooth wide road went to the east. The other road, less traveled, narrower, rougher, went north—the way they wanted to go. At least it was a road. They went north.

  This route seemed to have a steeper grade and the jungle closed in and got thicker again. Perhaps they were near a water source, a river perhaps. She rolled down her window and listened over the truck noise for the sounds of water. Maybe she heard something. It was hard to tell. She didn’t want to stop the truck to investigate. She rolled up the window, still trying to maintain a speed that would get them to their destination in the shortest time possible. The steeper grade was getting noticeable. They weren’t going over a mountain, but they were definitely experiencing a higher elevation.

  Approaching a curve, she glanced in her rearview mirror. There it was, below them, down the incline of the road, the thing they had dreaded—a vehicle—gaining on them, kicking up dust, moving fast. Maybe they weren’t after them. Maybe they were. Maria pressed the gas.

  “I see it,” said Rosetta.

  They both heard the ping on their roof, then another. They were being fired on. Maria pressed the gas harder. It was to the floorboard. She looked at the needle. They were running out of gas.

  “Get out the guns,” she said calmly.

  Chapter 39

  Diane and her party sat at a round table in the rear of the restaurant. Frank came a few minutes late and took a seat next to Diane, kissing her cheek as he sat down.

  Diane smiled at him. He looked good. She would like to dump everything and just go somewhere on a honeymoon. Get married later when things were resolved and calm. Instead, she sighed and introduced him to Steven Mays. They shook hands across the table.

  “So you’re Diane’s intended,” Steven said. “They said you track fraud and computer crimes. That must be pretty high-tech these days. Is it hard to stay ahead of the hackers?”

  Frank agreed he had to work to stay on the cutting edge, and they had a short discussion on how enormous amounts of money can be stolen in a fraction of a second.

  No one talked about anything that was at the top of their list of concerns, and none of them asked Steven why he was here. He hadn’t returned Gregory’s calls and when David finally got in touch with him, he seemed vague, only cursorily sympathetic and rather distant. Now here he was.

  The waitress came with drinks. Diane had ordered Frank tea the way he liked it. All of them ordered steak. Diane guessed that they, like her, were hungry for red meat. Steak and potatoes were good food for when the going got tough. When the orders were taken and the waitress left, Steven put his palms on the table, fingers spread, almost like a gesture of surrender.

  “This isn’t easy,” he said. “I know, David, Gregory, I blew you off. Honestly, I didn’t want to hear from anyone from . . . from that time. The memories are still vivid, and I guess they always will be. I remember the smells, the colors, the sounds . . . the horror. I just like to keep them tucked away. I know I showed little sympathy for the predicament you’re in. It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic, I just didn’t want to revisit that time.”

  He took a drink of his tea. “Nice,” he said and set it down on the table. He paused for several moments. No one urged him on. They waited, sipping their own drinks.

  “I was actually in Canada when I talked to you, David. I flew back to Washington in a friend’s private plane. When we landed at the airport, I was met by the FBI. They and the DEA searched the plane. Said they were just following up a tip. They searched me and they searched my luggage. They didn’t find anything and said everything was fine. Just routine. It was all hush-hush, didn’t make the news, and everyone was polite.”

  He took another long drink. He seemed to be summoning his strength.

  “I know that world—politics. It wasn’t routine. And I know no one will mention it. My supervisors won’t call me in and question me about it. They won’t say anything. I also know I won’t be promoted. Ever. Operationally speaking, in Washington rumors are treated as true. Can’t afford the risk they might be true, so better be safe than be hit with a scandal later. If I don’t find out who did this and why, my career is over.”

  He looked at each of them
around the table. “So I came here. To help and to get help. I’m just sorry it is so self-serving.”

  No one said anything for a moment. Diane spoke first.

  “The massacre was the most horrible thing that ever happened to any of us, and we all dealt with the tragedy in our own way. I don’t judge anyone’s way of dealing with it.”

  “That’s the truth,” said Gregory. “We are all a little self-serving about this secret rumor mill that’s churning away somewhere. We are glad you are here. It’s very nice to see you again, Steven.”

  Steven smiled, then grinned. “Truthfully, it’s nice to be here. It wasn’t that I didn’t like you guys.”

  The salads came, then the steaks shortly after that. Steven spent the time telling Frank about himself.

  “Your accent doesn’t sound South Carolina,” said Frank, pushing his salad away and attacking his steak.

  “Something I’ve worked on. When I went to college, I decided my accent might hold me back.” He tilted his head and smiled. “Youth can be cruel. I probably wouldn’t do it now, but at the time I was desperate to change it, ignoring my parents’ and grandparents’ hurt feelings. I come from an old family, the kind of family that has only a handful of names it uses for their children. We have several Steven Gavins in our family.” He smiled and turned to Diane. “So, Diane, a museum. Do you like being director?”

  “Very much,” she said.

  “She also directs the crime lab here,” said Gregory. “Plus, she’s back to being a forensic anthropologist. Our Diane wears many hats.”

  Through the rest of the entrée they discussed the museum. During desserts of chocolate cake, pecan pie, and cheesecake, David and Gregory caught Steven up with their lives since South America. Steven thanked Gregory for helping him get on at the State Department, looking chagrined when he did it. Diane was sure he had thanked Gregory at the time. He probably felt it needed repeating. On the whole, it was a pleasant conversation. Nevertheless, Diane found it a little strained.

  It wasn’t until after-dinner coffee that they talked about what was really on their minds—who wanted to ruin them . . . and why.

  “Are we the only ones under attack?” asked Steven.

  “The only ones we can find,” said Gregory.

  “Why us?” Steven said it as if he didn’t expect an answer. “What do we have in common, other than being former coworkers in South America?”

  “All of you discovered the massacre at the mission,” said Frank. “Were there other members of your group who were with you that day—others who weren’t killed at the mission?”

  “Several interviewers were still out in the field when we came in that day,” said Gregory. “I or David have called them. None have been having the same problems we have been having.”

  “By the same token,” said David, “several people who were with us have not had rumors spread about them.”

  “How about Simone?” said Steven. “She was right there with us when we walked into the mission grounds.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Diane looked at David and Gregory.

  “What?” said Steven.

  “Simone is in a coma,” said Diane. She told him about the intruders at the museum, about discovering Simone hurt, about the attack and the fire.

  “My God,” said Steven. “I didn’t know. I’m doubly damned for being so insensitive. She’s going to get well, isn’t she?”

  “We don’t know,” said Diane. “Gregory went to see her today and to speak with the family. They won’t speak with me.”

  She briefly told him about Simon’s mother, the mysterious caller, and his lie that Simone was working for Diane at the time of the attack on her.

  “Wow,” said Steven, “this is like getting hit by a truck. I didn’t see this coming. Poor Simone. You have no idea what she was doing here, why she came to see you?”

  Diane shook her head. She told Steven what they had found—the feathers, the bone, the animal parts. “We don’t know what they mean, or if it was even Simone who brought them, or perhaps tried to hide them. For all we know, there could be a shaman walking around the museum wondering where he dropped his medicine bag.”

  Steven gave a little puff of a laugh. “Odd, however,” he said, putting more sugar in his coffee.

  “Did you learn anything from Simone’s parents, Gregory?” David asked.

  David was still waiting for chocolate to put in his own coffee. It was an odd request that the waitstaff usually forgot, despite David being a regular there. When he saw their waitress, he pointed to his cup. She nodded.

  “You’d think something like chocolate in the coffee would be easy to remember,” he said.

  Gregory smiled at him; then his lips turned down in a frown. “I did learn a few things to add to our list of barely helpful things. I managed to get Simone’s mother to talk to me, which, if I may say, tested all my diplomatic skills. The woman despises us. But I imagine, Diane, you already detected that when you spoke with her. I fear, however, that what I found out isn’t much more than that which your Chief of Detectives Garnett discovered from the family. Perhaps Steven can help us make something of it.”

  Chapter 40

  “Mrs. Brooks still insists that Simone was in the process of doing some favor for Diane,” continued Gregory. “And what she was doing was somehow—unknown to Simone—illegal. The man who told Mrs. Brooks this over the phone spoke with a British accent—at least, I suspect he did, judging from her first reaction to my voice.”

  “I don’t suppose she could distinguish what kind of a British accent?” said Steven.

  Steven knew, as did Diane and the others, that there are British accents, and then there are British accents. Just as the sound of spoken American English varies greatly within the United States, varying British accents can be heard within the U.K. and around the world. Simply because the caller had a British accent didn’t mean he hailed from Britain.

  Even in foreign universities, students learning English as a second language must choose between American English or British English. Gifted fluent speakers of English as a second language don’t speak it with a German, Spanish, French, or any other first-language accent. They speak it with an American accent or a British accent. And, of course, many people can mimic accents quite well. The man who called Simone’s mother could be from anywhere.

  “Did Mrs. Brooks tell you what he said exactly?” asked Diane.

  “I did manage to get that out of her. Apparently she had more information than she told Chief Garnett. This mysterious coworker of Simone’s told Mrs. Brooks that you had been sending bolts of material soaked in drugs out of Porto Barquis to a place in Florida where the drugs were recovered. He did not tell her what kind of drugs, nor did the woman ask. It was enough for her to hear the word drugs,” said Gregory. “I think it is all one thing to her.”

  “What part did she think Simone played in this?” asked Diane. “Surely she didn’t think her daughter was part of a drug smuggling ring.”

  “No. The chap told her that you hired Simone to track down a lost shipment of valuable South American Indian fabric for the museum, and that Simone had no idea what she was getting into or what she was carrying.”

  “Damn,” said Diane. “She believes it still, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes. She won’t be talked out of it. It is proof, after all, that she was right, and her daughter should have followed her advice,” said Gregory.

  The waitress came to refill the coffee and bring David several packets of hot chocolate to put in his. They stopped talking until she left. Diane took a long sip of the hot coffee, wishing Simone had at least written her a letter, an e-mail, or something. What was this about?

  “Did Simone’s brother, Pieter, have anything to say?” asked Diane. “You said you were to meet him in the coffee shop.”

  “He said Simone was obsessed,” said Gregory. “She discovered something in Oliver’s things and it made her crazy. Simone had been secretive and preoccupie
d ever since she looked into the boxes that Oliver mailed from the mission. She told Pieter she was finishing an investigation that Oliver had started. Pieter thinks she had collected some kind of evidence of her own, and that she was bitter and determined, but would not confide in him. She told him he was safer not knowing.”

  “She knew to trust Diane,” said David. “Whatever she had, or whatever she discovered, it must have revealed who was involved. Otherwise, how would she know who to trust? How would she know to trust Diane? She must have discovered which one of ‘us’ ordered the raid on the mission—if that was what her words to you meant, Diane.”

  Steven went still. “What? What do you mean—one of us ordered the raid on the mission? It was Santos.”

  “We believe that Simone thought it was one of our team who asked him to do it,” said Diane.

  Steven shook his head. “No, I don’t believe that. We were too close.”

  “Perhaps she meant someone on the periphery of your group,” Frank suggested. “Someone loosely connected with the project or the mission.”

  No one said anything for several moments.

  “No,” said Diane, as if she just truly realized what Simone’s warning meant. “Simone meant someone close. She said ‘us.’ That’s who we were then—a family, an ‘us.’ Someone close. She meant one of our small family.”

  Steven shook his head. “You’ll have a hard time convincing me of that.”

  “Perhaps, whoever it is,” said David, “meant to kill Simone and stop her from revealing their identity. They caught up with her here, at the museum. These rumors were meant to distract us, to give us something to do other than investigate what they hoped was Simone’s death. Destroy our credibility, cost us our jobs. It was their bad luck that she spoke to you before she lapsed into a coma.”

  “That doesn’t explain my problem,” said Steven. “I knew none of this. Why would I need to be distracted?”

  “Perhaps you know something,” Gregory said to Steven. “There’s a reason. We just need to flush it out. It gives me some satisfaction that, if David is correct and these rumors were meant to give us a time-consuming hobby away from Simone, they had the opposite effect.”