Quests of Simon Ark

by Edward D. Hoch

  I glanced at Simon and saw that his eyes were on her face. “Who would want to murder your husband, Mrs. Costa?”

  “He hadn’t been my husband for two years. I saw him only when he came to see the children. And this year he did not even send them his usual cards before Christmas. If he involved himself with the spirit cults he deserves what he got.”

  “Do you know for a fact he was involved with them?”

  “I told you his life no longer concerned me. But years ago he was involved with them. I do some modeling, and an artist used a photograph of me to paint a picture of one of their goddesses.”

  “Yemanja,” Simon said.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “The resemblance is still quite striking.”

  “They ask me to take part in their ceremony each year, on the beach. This year, because of the funeral, I should not go.” She considered a moment and added, “But perhaps I will. Sergio was dead for me two years ago.”

  “It might be wiser to stay away,” Simon cautioned. “But what about your brother-in-law, Luiz? Are you on friendly terms with him?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “He did not come back here after the funeral.”

  “How observant you are. No, we’re not on particularly friendly terms. He took in Sergio after I’d thrown him out. He was on Sergio’s side through the entire divorce.”

  “Isn’t that natural for a brother?”

  “I suppose so,” she said with a sigh, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

  “Did you ever stop into their shop?”

  “Never, since the divorce.”

  “One last question, Mrs. Costa—if I may still call you that. Was Sergio involved in any criminal activity?”

  “Do you mean the cults? They are not criminal, except for the black magic perhaps.”

  “Not the cults. Something else.”

  “No, no—there was nothing else while we were married. Since then, who knows?”

  We left her on the patio and walked back to my rented car. “Why did you ask that last question, Simon? Do you know something?”

  “No more than you do, my friend.”

  I thought about that as we drove back to our hotel.

  There was a message for us to call Marcos Orleans. When I reached him he said, “You and Simon might want to come down here to police headquarters. We’ve solved the Costa murder.”

  When we got there Orleans greeted us with a smile. “We have filed charges against a Peruvian citizen named Juan Mira.”

  “Murder charges?” Simon asked.

  “Yes, along with certain customs violations and other offenses.”

  “I thought it odd that a member of the federal police would be investigating a local killing unless there were other crimes involved.”

  I remembered Orleans’ introduction to us at the morgue. Simon had caught the fact I’d missed—that he was a federal investigator rather than a local one.

  “Mira has confessed to everything except the actual killing,” Orleans said. “But we’re certain he’ll admit to that soon too.”

  “What did the customs violations involve?” Simon asked.

  “Traffic in pre-Columbian art treasures. But I’ll let you hear it directly from the man himself. He’s more than willing to talk. We’ve been on his trail for some time.”

  He issued some rapid instructions in Portuguese over the intercom, and presently a slender man with sharp features was brought into the room. It was obvious at once why he’d been so willing to talk. There was a large purple bruise beneath one eye and he walked with a stiff painful gait that hinted at other unseen injuries.

  “Ah!” Orleans greeted him, helping him to a chair. “These gentlemen would like to hear your story just as you told it to me.”

  Juan Mira shifted in his chair as if seeking a less painful position. I was reminded of the news stories of the Brazilian brand of justice, with torture of prisoners and the infamous death squads of off-duty policemen who sought out and executed known criminals without the formality of a trial. For an instant I even wondered if Sergio Costa might have been the victim of a police death squad. But then Mira began to tell his story.

  “The government of Peru has very strict laws against the exporting of pre-Columbian works of art, whether jewelry or sculpture. Sergio hit on a method of moving the art objects across the border by using tour boats that operate on the upper Amazon River. The source of the Amazon is in the Peruvian Andes, not far from some of the famed Inca ruins. Tourists often visit the ruins and then take a boat trip partway down the river to visit some native villages. It is not difficult for the boats to wander across the border at this point long enough for a skilled skin diver like myself to remove certain packages secured below the waterline. Once the art pieces are inside Brazil I transport them to Sergio’s shop here in Rio. They are sold as imitations for Customs purposes, with the buyer paying extra under the counter.”

  “Tell them about last week,” Orleans urged.

  “A few days before Christmas I met with Sergio to conclude our largest deal yet. We avoided seeing each other as much as possible, of course, only meeting two or three times a year when there was a shipment to be delivered. This time I phoned him as usual and he met me at the Rio Yacht Club near Sugar Loaf. I gave him the packages of smuggled art work—sixteen small pieces in all—but then he said he couldn’t pay me till the following day. I was upset because he’d never done that before, but he pleaded that his brother was getting suspicious and he hadn’t been able to take the money out of the store account. He promised to meet me at the Yacht Club the next day, but he never showed up. I went to the store but only Luiz was there.”

  “Exactly when was this?”

  “Two days before Christmas. I kept searching for him all day and night, and the next day I even confronted Luiz in the shop. He told me his brother was missing.”

  Marcus Orleans nodded and turned to Simon. “It seems obvious now that Juan here tracked down Sergio and murdered him for welching on the deal. He hasn’t confessed that yet, but he will.”

  Juan Mira lifted his head, and there was a fleeting look of fright in his eyes. “I did not find him. I did not kill him.”

  Orleans signaled to a guard and the prisoner was led away. Simon leaned back in his chair and asked, “You’re convinced this man is the murderer?”

  “It seems more than likely, doesn’t it?”

  “Sergio had the smuggled artwork. Someone might have killed him for it.

  “Or Juan Mira might be lying about not receiving the money,” the detective pointed out. “He might have received payment and then killed Sergio himself, to take back the art treasures.”

  “But we come back to one unanswerable question,” Simon said. “Why was the body embalmed and wrapped as a mummy? If Mira killed him—or even if one of your infamous police death squads carried out his execution—the body would have been left in a ditch somewhere. A great deal of trouble and risk went into having it embalmed.”

  But Orleans seemed unconcerned. “Mira will talk, and when he does we will have the answers.”

  Simon Ark nodded, but I could see he was unconvinced.

  As we walked along the streets of Rio, Simon asked, “What do you think about it, my friend?”

  “About as you do, I guess. A simple falling out between criminals, complicated only by the circumstances under which the body was found. Has Orleans determined the cause of death yet?”

  “He told me it was poison, but they’re running further tests on some tissues they removed from the body.”

  Ahead of us we could see office workers dumping old files and computer printout sheets from the windows of buildings, joining them with an occasional roll of toilet paper. It was what one might have expected on Wall Street during the era of the ticker-tape parades, only here there was no parade. It was merely New Year’s Eve, and the workers were following some old Rio tradition.

  Simon watched the papers floating
down around us and seemed to remember that other New Year’s Eve tradition about which we’d heard. “We will go to the beach tonight,” he decided, “and search for Bamba Yin.”

  “You think Sergio’s death may have been a sacrificial killing after all?”

  “We will see.”

  When night came the wide beach at Copacabana was already crowded with spiritists come to worship. They’d erected colorful cabalistic banners and strung lines of fluttering pennants back and forth above the sands. “It looks a bit like a gas station back home,” I remarked to Simon as we lingered at the edge of the crowd.

  “It is a religion to them,” he said. “Their homage to Yemanja, the sea goddess.”

  As darkness fell, thousands of candles were lit all along the beach. Each little grouping was in a particular shape—a cross, or a circle surrounding some gifts to Yemanja, or a magical sign of African origins. As we moved carefully past the groups it seemed as if all the religions of the world might be mingling and merging here on the sands of a Rio beach.

  “Be careful not to disturb them,” Simon warned as we moved past a particularly colorful display with candlelight reflecting off an array of champagne and beer bottles.

  “Do they come here to drink this?” I wondered.

  “Those are gifts too. Yemanja must be lured, from the sea.”

  We came upon a large group of worshipers circling a statue of Yemanja, once again in her flowing blue gown. And I remembered Rosetta Costa’s remarkable resemblance to the portraits.

  “Here!” Simon said, gripping my arm. Ahead, in the darkness lit only by the glow of a thousand candles stuck into the sand, I saw a familiar figure. It was the lawyer who had summoned us, Felix Brighter, deep in conversation with an elderly cigar-smoking woman. As soon as he saw us, Brighter broke off and came over to greet us.

  “Quite a spectacle, isn’t it?” he said. “There must be a thousand people in this section of the beach.”

  “I didn’t expect to find you here,” Simon told him.

  “Why not? My client’s body was found nearby. Like yourself, I feel these cult members may know something.”

  “And the one to whom you were speaking?”

  “Bamba Yin, a legend among these people.”

  Simon nodded. “And the one I seek as well.” He took a few steps across the sand to reach her before she could move away. As she turned her hugeness toward us I saw her face clearly for the first time. It was as ugly as the face of Yemanja was beautiful.

  “Do you wish a reading, stranger?” she asked Simon.

  “I wish what my friend Felix Brighter wishes—information regarding the death of Sergio Costa.”

  The old woman cackled, and the flickering candlelight danced around us. “Why should I tell you anything?” she asked.

  “Father Rudolph told me you could help.”

  “The priest?” She fell back a step as if we had struck her.

  “Was Sergio’s death meant as a sacrifice to Yemanja?”

  “That is for Yemanja to say. I know nothing.”

  “Then why was Brighter speaking with you just now?”

  “He desires knowledge of the future, as does everyone else. He pays me to tell him of his future.”

  “He came to you as a fortune teller?” Simon asked.

  I could see what she wanted even if Simon couldn’t. I slipped a folded bill into her hand. “Tell us of the past, old lady. Tell us of Sergio Costa’s death.”

  She accepted the money readily enough, but before she could speak there was a commotion down the beach. I turned to see what was going on but there was only a tide of worshipers running toward the water, leaving their candles flickering in the sand.

  Felix Brighter appeared again at our side. “They are preparing for midnight when they will surge into the surf with their gifts for the goddess.”

  “No,” Simon said. “It is something more.”

  Behind us a native boy was beating on drums. There was chanting and wild dancing and a feeling of madness all around us.

  “Yemanja! Yemanja.”

  And then we saw her, caught by the glow of a thousand candles, coming out of the surf like the goddess she was.

  Yemanja, ruler of the sea.

  “No!” Simon shouted, rushing forward before I could stop him. “No! Go back! You’re in great danger!”

  But his words did not carry above the chanting of her worshipers. Yemanja came on, through the surf, gowned in flowing blue and crowned with stars. It was a portrait come to life, and even as I realized it must be Rosetta Costa I heard the sound of a single shot cut through the chanting and the screaming. The goddess staggered, and a blossom of blood seemed to burst from her. She sank to her knees in the water, spreading her arms in supplication.

  “There’s your murderer!” Simon Ark shouted. “Stop him!”

  Then I was splashing through the waves after the running figure, aware of movement all around me, intent only on closing the gap between us.

  I was almost upon him when at the last moment he turned, and I was staring again into the dead face of Sergio Costa at the morgue. I faltered at that vision, and his pistol came up again and I saw death as clearly as I ever had.

  And then the detective Orleans was on him, tackling him in the surf. The gun went off, sending its bullet toward the moon, and I hurried to help Orleans hold him down.

  “Simon!” I shouted. “It’s Sergio Costa! He’s not dead after all!”

  But Simon Ark merely bent up and stripped the mustache from the killer’s upper lip. “Sergio is dead. This is Luiz who, like Cain, has slain his brother.”

  “She may live,” Marcos Orleans told us later at his office in the federal building. “The doctors give her a better-than-even chance.”

  “That’s what I can’t figure out,” I said, turning to Simon. “Why would he risk everything to take that shot at her?”

  “Because, my friend, he had made one mistake that Rosetta of all people could discover. But I should start at the beginning.”

  “With the embalming? Why did he do that? To shift suspicion to the spiritists?”

  “Not primarily, though that became a secondary factor. No, he had the most practical of reasons for having his brother’s body embalmed—to hide the time of death. You see, I believe Sergio was murdered up to a week before he disappeared.”

  “But that’s impossible!” I protested. “He was seen at the shop! That man Mira met him at the yacht club!”

  “Exactly. And we’ve already established that the mustache is the main difference in the appearance of Sergio and Luiz. Don’t you see? Luiz poisoned his brother some time during the week before Christmas and took his place wearing a false mustache as he did tonight. We know they were never together in the shop so it was easy to work the substitution there. He found some undertaker who didn’t ask questions about embalming the body, and then hid it at his home until after Christmas.”

  “But why?” I asked. “What was his motive?”

  “He wanted the shipment of pre-Columbian art that Mira was smuggling in. I suppose somehow Luiz learned of his brother’s illegal activities. He decided to kill him, and in such a way that Luiz himself could profit from the crime. Mira would be cheated out of payment for his smuggled goods, and the already dead Sergio would be blamed.”

  “Mira didn’t realize the man he met was Luiz and not Sergio?”

  “They kept away from each other, remember, and met only two or three times a year. It was probably the phone call from Mira that triggered the whole crime. Luiz answered it, pretending to be his brother, and learned about the meeting. That’s when he decided to kill Sergio and take his place. He put Mira off for a day on payment and then announced his brother’s sudden disappearance. You see, Sergio had to disappear before Christmas because he always visited the children on Christmas and either they or his former wife would have surely seen through Luiz’s disguise.”

  “And the mummy?”

  “Luiz couldn’t have the polic
e find Sergio’s body and announce he’d been dead a week because then Mira would have realized what really happened. But once Luiz had his brother’s embalmed body he decided to wrap it as a mummy and throw it in the ocean. That way it might seem a sacrifice to the gods, and the fact of the embalming would be only one more bizarre part of it.”

  Marcos Orleans stirred in his chair. “Why did he try to kill Rosetta tonight?”

  “He remembered his one mistake. Sergio always sent the children Christmas cards a few days before the holiday. Rosetta had already commented on their absence this year, and he feared she might realize that her former husband died earlier than everyone thought. He put on the false mustache to disguise himself tonight and tried to kill her when she came out of the sea as Yemanja, hoping her death would be linked to the spiritists too.”

  Orleans nodded. “You are a wise man, Simon Ark. How did you know all this?”

  “The missing Christmas cards, the strong resemblance between the brothers, the fact that poison could be most easily administered by someone living in the same house as the victim, and, lastly, a small oversight that Luiz made. He told Juan Mira that Sergio was missing on Christmas Eve, but he told us it was Christmas morning before he realized something was wrong.”

  When we left, Simon suggested we stroll along the beach. The litter was still there from the night before—candle stubs peeking from the sand, champagne bottles unclaimed by the goddess but emptied by others, cigar butts discarded by ugly old women.

  “There’s Felix Brighter,” I said, pointing toward a lone figure by the water.

  “Yes,” Simon said.

  Brighter turned in the sand as we approached. “You solved it, didn’t you?” he said, almost bitterly.

  “Yes.”

  “But for the federal police, not for me.”

  Simon nodded. “You brought me down here to find the artworks, didn’t you? As Sergio’s lawyer, you knew about his involvement with Mira. And when he was killed you wanted those smuggled art treasures for yourself.”

  “You knew that?”

  “Not until last night,” Simon said. “I found Bamba Yin after the shooting and strolled with her here on the beach. That was the future you wanted to buy—the location of that final shipment.”