The Xibalba Murders

by Lyn Hamilton

  There was an exception to that one, too. The first editions of John Lloyd Stephens’s Incidents of Travel, some of my favorite books, were to go to Lara McClintoch, my friend and colleague, whose love of the civilization of the Maya may yet equal my own. I was quite overwhelmed by this, and even more determined to see that justice be done.

  Next to the personal effects. Francesca, Isa, and Manuela Ortiz were all left lovely old pieces of jewelry that belonged to Don Hernan’s family. Sheila Gomez was left the watch that was with Don Hernan’s remains. Dona Josefina, semiconscious in the hospital, was to receive his mother’s wedding ring, a sapphire-and-diamond piece that his wife had also worn.

  The bulk of the money in Don Hernan’s estate was to go to a local hospital run by the nuns, where in a sad coincidence Dona Josefina now lay. An annual stipend, however, was to go to Antonio Valesquez. Antonio looked close to tears.

  One item was left. Alvarez intoned, “To my young friend Alejandro Ortiz, I leave one of my most treasured possessions, a statue of a Maya ballplayer. To play the game well is to ensure that the cycles of the earth will continue. I pray this knowledge will set his feet on the right path, and give him the peace he craves and deserves.”

  Alejandro burst into tears and fled the room, leaving his family sitting in bewilderment.

  That ended the reading of the last will and testament of Senor Dr. Hernan Castillo Rivas. Alvarez invited everyone for a glass of port, and then we all filed out of his office, deep in our own thoughts.

  This did not appear to be a will to kill over. The bulk of the estate went to institutions, the museo and the hospital. The jewelry and books had some commercial value, certainly, but their worth, to this group at least, would be primarily sentimental. The money Antonio Valesquez was to receive would help him, but he hadn’t needed to kill to get it. Don Hernan had been helping him financially all along.

  I remained totally in the dark.

  i wait for night to fall, so that once again I am at ease with the light, or rather its absence. My senses, carefully tamped down by day to protect my ragged psyche, can now expand, and every action, sight, and sound has a clarity that is almost frightening. I feel as if I am in a dream, but know that I am not. Instead everything has such an immediacy that I feel compelled to do now what I have been dreading.

  I leave the others at the inn, and head for the hospital where Dona Josefina lies.

  I move quietly down dark and silent whitewashed corridors, the only sounds the soft whirring of fans and the distant murmurs of a late service in the chapel. Built like a Spanish cloister, the hospital has crucifixes everywhere. I wonder if Dona Josephina is religious, or if she gave up on God a long time ago.

  I find her room, directed by a placid sister. I wonder if the sisters know that Dona Josefina was once a courtesan and whether or not it matters in their eyes, if not God’s.

  The room is dimly lit, but I see her very well. She lies there, one eye closed, the other drooping half-shut. A useless hand is curled up in a spasm, the other clenches and unclenches, clutching at the sheet in what I imagine to be intense frustration and despair.

  I go to the bedside. In a low whisper, I begin to talk to her. I tell her that I am the fair-haired woman who is a friend of the Ortiz family, and that I sat at the table next to her in the hotel several nights ago.

  I tell her I am sorry we did not have a chance to speak, that I have heard something of her story from Francesca Ortiz, and that I wish we could talk about her life and mine.

  I tell her how I came to Merida on the strength of a phone call from Hernan Castillo, and that now that he is dead, I am obsessed with finding what he was looking for, and for bringing to justice the evil person who killed him.

  I tell her that I know there is no reason on earth that she should believe what I say, but that nonetheless I need her help.

  “I don’t know whether you can hear me, or understand me, but if you can,” I say, taking her good hand, “will you try to tell me? Press one for yes, two for no.”

  I feel her squeeze my hand very faintly.

  One for yes.

  “Did he really tell you what he was looking for?” I ask.

  One for yes.

  “I know you can’t tell me what it is. But is it a book?” I ask again.

  One for yes.

  “Is it a rare book?”

  One for yes.

  “One of the Chilam Balam books?” I ask, thinking of Antonio’s comments.

  Two for no.

  “But a book of the Maya.”

  One for yes.

  “Gracias,” I tell her.

  The sister comes to the door.

  “You must leave her,” she says. “She must rest.”

  I turn to go, then turn back again.

  “Don Hernan’s will was read today. He left his mother’s wedding ring to you,” I tell the almost lifeless form.

  As I leave I watch a tear form in the corner of her one good eye and run slowly down her cheek. I pat her hand.

  “I promise to come back,” is all I can think to say.

  It is so little.

  CHUEN

  The embossed vellum envelope and its contents informed me that the pleasure of my company at dinner that evening was requested by Senor Diego Maria Gomez Arias, and Sheila Stratton Gomez.

  Obviously invitations to the Gomez residence were in such demand that no one minded being invited at the last minute. To be fair, I suppose, I should point out that had I left and entered the hotel by the front door like everyone else, I would have seen the invitation when it arrived the night before—delivered, I was informed, by limo and driver.

  As it was, I had gone on one of my nocturnal journeys through Merida, to Dona Josefina’s bedside, and someone had therefore slid the invitation under my door during the night.

  Late invitation or not, I had nothing planned for the evening, and I still wanted to meet Don Diego and have a conversation with him about Don Hernan. And anyway, it was Chuen, day of the monkey, the creature who in Maya mythology is the artist, and therefore an appropriate one on which to meet Don Diego, collector and patron of the arts that he was.

  It is also supposed to be a good day, a day of knowledge, and I fervently hoped that it would be. The Maya calendar was, I hoped, unfolding as it should. I accepted the invitation with alacrity.

  There was one worrisome item in the invitation, however, the words in its lower left-hand corner. Black tie, it said. I had not brought anything with me that would come close to being fancy enough for a black tie event.

  I made haste to find Isa, who smiled when she saw the invitation. “Leave it with me,” she said. That sounded like a good idea to me.

  I had lots of other things to do. This was Eulalia Gonzalez’s day back at the morgue, and then there was much research to do. I could, of course, do it the hard way, which was to go to the museo library, and plow through rows of neat little index cards and piles of books.

  But I had a better idea.

  First I headed for the Cafe Escobar. I scanned the room for Alejandro, but he was not there. Isa had told me that he had taken to his room after the reading of the will and could not be enticed down for dinner. Francesca had left a tray of food outside his door, and while he had had something, much of it had remained uneaten. He might still be there for all I knew.

  I went to the back hall again, and placed a call to Alex. I’d called Alex from the hotel a couple of times in the last few days, to tell him what was happening down here. I told him about murders and morgues, he told me about the latest antics of my cat. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in all that I was involved in, but I think he probably thought I needed to hear about everyday activities to counteract the events I was encountering.

  For this call, though, I didn’t want to use the hotel phone. These were strange times, and I certainly would not put it past Major Martinez to find some way to tap the lines. A pay phone, albeit in a public hallway, felt safer.

  “Would you
consider doing a little surfing in cyberspace on my behalf, Alex?” I began. “I need a little help with some research.”

  “Of course!” he replied, as I knew he would. There was virtually nothing Alex liked better than a cruise on the information superhighway. “What might I be researching?”

  “Books. To be specific, rare books. Books of the Maya. You can skip the Chilam Balam books. That’s not what we’re looking for,” I said, remembering the information I had gleaned from Dona Josefina. “Something really rare. The equivalent of a Gutenberg Bible, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that sort of thing.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” he said. He meant it, too. I could hear the clicking of the computer keys over the telephone. He was logging on to the Internet even as we spoke.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if this is possible or not, but I’d like to check some credentials.”

  “Names?”

  “Lucas May, Diego Maria Gomez Arias, Major Ignacio Martinez, and”—here I paused for a second or two—“Jonathan Hamelin. The first one, Lucas May, is an archaeologist, Mexican, don’t know much more than that. Gomez Arias is a wealthy eccentric here in Merida— hotels, water, that sort of stuff, owns a shipping company, collects art—”

  “You seem to know a fair amount about him right now,” Alex interrupted. “Anything specific you want on him?”

  “I don’t know really. Just see if there is anything out of the ordinary. Martinez is with the federal police, and that’s about all I know, except that I don’t like him.”

  “And the last one?”

  “Jonathan Hamelin. Archaeologist. British. Cambridge University. Specializes in Mesoamerican studies. Isa thinks he’s to the manor born, as it were.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I was asking about Jonathan for personal reasons, or as part of the research on Don Hernan’s death. I fervently hoped it would turn out to be the former.

  “Got it,” Alex said. “For some of this I may need to go into one of the news services. Unlike the Internet, these aren’t free. How badly do you need to know?”

  “Badly. I’ll pay any charges, Alex, don’t worry. Take it out of the house money, and I’ll send some more.” I’d left some money to take care of any problems with my house that might arise while I was away.

  “Thanks. How will I reach you?”

  “Telephone me at the hotel. If I’m there, tell me there’s a leak in the basement of my house or something. I’ll get the idea. I’ll call you back within the hour from another phone.

  “If I’m not there, just leave a message that you’ve called about some minor problem with my house. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Right. I’m on this,” he said.

  “And Alex,” I said, “be careful. You are searching for information on something that people may be prepared to kill for. So please don’t do anything that would draw attention to yourself. No speeding on the Internet, okay?”

  “There are no radar traps on the electronic highway, Lara,” he said. “But I get your point. I’ll try to be subtle.”

  With that we signed off, and I headed for the morgue.

  I was getting to be an expert at finding my way around the hallways of this austere institution, and soon once again found myself at the little window. He of the greasy fingers was there, eating again. I asked for Eulalia Gonzalez.

  “Who may I tell her is asking for her?” he said rather formally for a man talking with his mouth full.

  I gave my name. It would mean nothing to her, but what else could I do?

  He called someone, then pressed the button that unlatched the door and waved me in the general direction of two vinyl-covered chairs that would have looked more suitable in someone’s kitchen. I waited.

  Shortly thereafter, Eulalia arrived. “I thought it would be you,” she said when she saw me. “How can I help you?”

  I wanted to ask her questions about Don Hernan, but there was something in her manner, a stiffness perhaps, a worried glance in the direction of the glutton, that stopped me.

  “I just came to thank you for your kindness the other day. We were all so stunned, we felt afterward that we had not acted appropriately…” My voice trailed off.

  “Quite all right,” she said. “Not many people thank morgue staff anyway,” she added.

  “Well, I was wondering whether it might be possible to buy you a coffee or something?”

  A pause. “Sure, why not?” she said. I get a break between one and three. Meet me at the Cafe Piramide,“ she said, naming a little cafe in the market area.

  “About one-thirty, okay?”

  “Great, see you there.”

  I had about an hour to kill, so I wandered over to the museo to look for Antonio Valesquez. A handwritten note taped to the library door said he would return shortly, but I waited fifteen minutes or so and he did not return. I headed for the café.

  I got a little lost in the market, and while I still arrived about five minutes early, I came in through an entrance off the side street rather than from the front patio.

  There were virtually no patrons in the restaurant proper. The cafe was obviously very popular, though. Everyone was seated outside in the sunshine or under the awning.

  I scanned the crowd outside from the relative darkness of the restaurant. It took me a minute to recognize Eulalia.

  At the morgue, she’d worn a lab coat and those white nurse-type shoes, her hair pulled severely back and no makeup. Here she wore her long dark hair down, and she was dressed in a black miniskirt, a fuchsia blouse, and black flats.

  She was sitting facing in my general direction, talking in an animated fashion to a man seated opposite her, with his back to me. I hesitated, wondering whether to interrupt when the man leaned forward and squeezed her hand, then stood up and half turned in my direction.

  It was Lucas. He bent over and kissed her, and she patted his cheek. Then looking up and down the street, perhaps for me, he disappeared into the crowded market.

  I was completely taken aback. I’d hoped to get information from Eulalia, but now I wasn’t sure how far I could take this.

  I thought for a few minutes. I suppose this could be a coincidence. They were obviously friends. And why not? So much in common, after all. She worked with the recently dead, he with those who had been deceased for centuries. How romantic!

  Even under these circumstances I had to smile at the thought of their dinner-table conversations. This was assuming that he talked more to her than he did to me.

  I decided to push ahead with my plan.

  “Hi,” I said as I approached the table. “Thanks for agreeing to this.” She looked a little startled at the direction I had arrived from, and I was betting she was wondering how long I’d been there.

  “You were at the morgue a few days ago,” she said. “Maria said you were asking for me. She said she didn’t give you my name, though.”

  “Flextime,” I said. “I figured it out from the time chart.”

  She nodded.

  “My turn. How did you know it was me, and how did you know I’d be back?”

  “Maria described you. We don’t get that many gringas at the morgue, and you were the only one that day.

  “As for returning—you asked a lot of questions, and you didn’t appear to be satisfied by the answers. No more than I was, really. I saw you touching the shoes. What did you deduce from them?” she asked.

  “They were covered in dust. So were the cuffs of his trousers. You couldn’t see that very well, because of the color of the shoes, but you could feel it on them. I didn’t much figure you’d get that sitting in an office.”

  She smiled. “Did you also notice one of them had been wet recently? Still felt a little clammy?”

  I shook my head.

  “That doesn’t happen much in an office, either.”

  “So where and when was he murdered, do you think?”

  “Well, I’m not the pathologist, only the assistant. I
assist with the autopsy and write up the reports for the pathologist’s signature. But not in the museo, surely. There was evidence he had been dragged some distance. Hence the dust on the cuffs and backs of his trousers.

  “The dust looks to me to be limestone. Could be anywhere out in the country. But there was also evidence of sand. There was no salt in the sand or on the shoes, so it wasn’t a beach he was walking on. He’d also done some walking in the forest. Traces of foliage you wouldn’t expect in the city.