Beautiful Sacrifice: A Novel

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Hola, Mercurio. It’s Lina Taylor,” she said, mouth dry.

  “Lina! It’s so good to hear your voice again,” he said. “It has been much too long.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just don’t get down to Tulum as often as I used to. And when I do it’s to see family or digs.”

  “Ah, but you never find time to see my digs,” he said, his voice teasing. “You know that you’re more than welcome anytime.”

  “Of course. You’re very gracious, Mercurio. You always have been.”

  Somehow Lina managed the long minutes of polite small talk—family and digs and weather, new friends and old—while she waited for the right moment to introduce the reason for her call.

  “Though truth to tell, I won’t be on the digs as much as I used to,” Mercurio said. “I’m in line for director of the department. Funny, no?”

  “A desk instead of a dig? You never seemed the type. Always happier out in the dirt, like me.”

  “Ah well, things change. Except for your father. His only change is to get more…”

  “Difficult?” Lina suggested dryly.

  She could almost hear Mercurio’s stifled laughter.

  “I should thank King Philip for teaching me the importance of being politic,” Mercurio said after a moment.

  “Are you kidding?” Lina asked. “Philip hates anything that doesn’t have him measuring a dig level, marking and mapping artifacts in situ, or gently brushing dirt away. He’s the least political academic I know.”

  “Exactly,” Mercurio said. “Which is why he’ll be out in the rough instead of on the fairway.”

  “When did you take up golf?”

  Mercurio laughed. She found herself smiling. Laughter was one of the reasons they had remained friends despite the professional and personal tensions.

  “But really, if not for Philip’s example of how not to do things,” Mercurio said, “I probably would have made a mess of my career.”

  Like Philip did.

  But neither of them said it aloud.

  “Philip is the best technical archaeologist I’ve ever known,” Mercurio continued. “Sites he’s named are referred to constantly. Yet he, himself, is almost never cited directly. It is excellent that he enjoys his digs. He will be working them until he dies, and then all he will have to show for his life is dirty fingernails.”

  Part of Lina wanted to disagree. The adult part told her to shut up and listen. Mercurio was her best sounding board for what was happening in the Maya artifact community outside the Reyes Balam family.

  “But I’m sure that you didn’t call to hear what I think of your father,” Mercurio said smoothly. “We’re adults, and that is behind us. So tell me the reason for this delightful break in my boring day.”

  Lina reminded herself that Mercurio was only being polite in the Mexican way, not actually flirting with her.

  Too bad she knew better.

  “I have a favor to ask, I’m afraid,” she said.

  “For you? Everything. Tell me.”

  “Could you check your incoming acquisitions for some pieces? I believe that they came out of Tulum, but Belize is a possibility.”

  “Why are you calling me? You should be talking to your mother.”

  “Because you know about every single legitimate dig that’s going on in Q Roo. And you’d be lying if you said that you didn’t know about some of the shady ones, too.”

  “Ah, another sticking point with your dear father. Yes, I can tell you what has been dug on an unsanctioned basis. But that’s also common knowledge for anyone who has an ear to the ground.”

  “Not for my mother. Not this time. I’ve seen pictures of these artifacts, but she hasn’t.”

  Sounds of the sea wind, an undertone of traffic, the sharp call of birds. Then Mercurio’s toneless whistle.

  He was thinking.

  “You interest me, as always,” he said after a minute. “How would Cecilia let something truly splendid escape her delicate claws? What were the artifacts?”

  Lina paused, rethinking her jump off the brink. There were only two known site groups of origin for Kawa’il cult artifacts. One of them was near Tulum, on Reyes Balam family land, and was investigated solely by Philip Taylor. The other was a smaller and much less significant site in Belize, which had been explored by de la Poole himself. Of course, ask Philip and he’d say that the Belize site was at best a misinterpretation of other worship practices, and at worst a fabrication that was meant to ride on Philip’s own coattails of discovery.

  Lina had never known whether Philip’s opinion was based on Mercurio having discovered the Belize site or something less emotional, more scholarly.

  “Where is the cat with your pink little tongue?” he asked.

  She edged closer to the brink of trusting through necessity rather than true choice. “There was at least one sacrificial knife, a scepter with sharp inserts, a Chacmool, an incense burner and…” Her mouth dried.

  “You need to be more specific,” Mercurio said. “We have hundreds of artifacts in the museum here that might fit such description.”

  Lina went over the edge and hoped that something would break her fall. Hunter would be her first choice.

  “They were all finely made. Obsidian, jade, intricate pottery. They might have been pieces from the Kawa’il cult,” she said. “The photo quality was too poor for me to be certain.”

  Only the sea breeze whispered across the open line.

  “Now where is that cat with the missing tongue?” Lina asked.

  “Send me the photos,” Mercurio said, his tone businesslike.

  “I don’t have them. The source is far from reputable and very wary.” It was only half a lie.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “The photos or the lack of provenance?” she shot back.

  “A moment.”

  The sounds of a door shutting and windows being closed came over the phone. Mercurio was sealing up his office against possible eavesdroppers.

  “I’ve heard rumors,” he said, coming back to the phone. “No photos, though. I’m swamped with departmental needs and directives that will keep me busy for the next month, but I will do what I can for my oldest friend.”

  Lina winced. She really didn’t want to be in the position of owing Mercurio a handsome favor.

  “Nothing elaborate, please,” she said. “I just hoped you could check your incoming storage or computer records. Despite the sharing agreement between our two museums, I can’t access what I need from here by computer.”

  “Perhaps you should come down here. It is your winter break, no? I could go through the storage area with you.”

  “Don’t you have a student or two you could throw at this? Just a quick search?”

  “You know what it is like in the Yucatan leading up to Christmas,” Mercurio said. “Everybody is home or partying or both. I don’t have the resources to handle my own needs, much less outside requests. Perhaps you could find a way for Celia or Carlos to fund a position for—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lina cut in. “Your funding comes from the state. I know that your eyes are bigger than your funding when it comes to acquisition—whose aren’t?—but I was hoping for a little help with this.”

  “If you should make your way down here for the festivities, you’re welcome to look at whatever you like. Otherwise, I can’t help you. No matter how much I would like to. And cara, I would.”

  Lina wondered what Mercurio wasn’t saying. “I’ll see what I can do about wedging in a visit during my family’s Christmas celebrations. And Abuelita’s birthday.”

  “Sooner rather than later, yes?”

  She made one last try. “If these artifacts are what I think they are, they should be in a museum. Your museum. This is the sort of thing that you and Philip both worked on.”

  “Not anymore. I have my own sites to work and my own problems to deal with. If these artifacts are Kawa’il cult objects, then they’re not mine. I doubt they�
�re Philip’s either. His salvage dig in Belize is just that. Salvage. The permits run out very soon, after which the Brits are turning the area into a bombing range.”

  No wonder Philip didn’t take the time to call, she thought.

  Lina knew how desperately Philip would be working to save what he could before the destruction began. It infuriated her that history could be so casually thrown away, but it was something that happened with “unusable” land more often than she wanted to think about. Yucatan and Belize—much of Mexico, in truth—was a mound of history waiting to be dug and understood. But the modern world needed space and modern people needed crops to eat, and various militaries needed training ranges.

  Damn it.

  “Have you talked to Philip about this?” Mercurio asked. “It would be like him to hide a significant find of Kawa’il artifacts.”

  “You’re being a bit of a bastard,” Lina pointed out graciously.

  “I learned from the very best. King Philip. My offer and my storeroom are still open to you, should you find yourself in Tulum Pueblo at any time.”

  “Thanks,” she said through her teeth. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but my other line is blinking.” A lie.

  “But of course.” Mercurio’s rich laughter came over the line. “I look forward to seeing you, mi amiga muy hermosa.”

  Lina disconnected and stared at the paperwork on her desk. Silently she cursed her father’s inability to yield even the smallest inch of possible prestige or scholarly credits when it came to his work. It was his and his alone. No sharing.

  Mercurio had recognized that and moved on to a place where the work could be just as much his. To Philip that was unforgivable.

  Mercurio can be a bastard, but he’s right this time, Lina admitted silently.

  She had learned about her father’s limitations and his brilliance the hard way. Now she simply kept as much distance as she could, though she intensely missed being on his digs.

  It was the same for her mother. Celia was brilliant in her chosen field of marketing artifacts. She had human manipulation down to a fine art—except for Philip. Lina hated the poison that flowed between the two fonts of knowledge in her chosen field. She could go thirsty or poison herself.

  Pull it out of the past, Lina told herself harshly. No matter how much I wish otherwise, those two won’t change. All I can control is my own reaction to their reality.

  She went back to her work, immersing herself in researching what she could about the artifacts in the photos.

  A knock came on her office door. The loud, impatient sound told her it wasn’t the first time the person had knocked.

  “Lina?” called Hunter’s voice. “You still in there?”

  “Yes.” The sound was hoarse. She swallowed. “I’m here.”

  “You eaten lunch?”

  She realized that she had forgotten the time, not unusual when she was working. “Ah, no.”

  “Neither have I,” Hunter said, opening the door. “Missed breakfast, too. Grab what you need and let’s go. There’s a place called Omar’s. You been there?”

  “I’ve heard it’s great,” she said, shutting down her computer.

  “Never tried it?”

  “Not the kind of place or area that I wanted to go in alone,” she said.

  “Smart lady.”

  Lina looked up. Hunter seemed to fill the doorway. Whatever he’d been doing in the past hours hadn’t left him in a good mood. There was an edge to his mouth and his eyes that made her glad she hadn’t made him mad.

  At least she hoped she hadn’t.

  “Long day already?” she asked.

  “It’ll do.”

  “Know the feeling.”

  “Wait,” he said as she stood up. “Better to do this here than over sloppy enchiladas.”

  She watched as he carefully removed something from the pocket of his shirt. It looked like a small wad of white paper towels.

  “I should probably be flogged in front of a lectern for carrying it like this,” he said, gently unwrapping the paper towel. “Didn’t have much choice at the time. There you are, you little devil.”

  Lina walked over and stood close to him. She saw a potsherd nestled in the white paper. The sherd had a fragment of what looked like a blue glyph painted on it.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Nice sherd,” she said neutrally. “A lot of them don’t have any paint at all.”

  “Jase and I found it in the apartment of a man who has gone missing, probably after stealing the artifacts from the ICE warehouse. There were wads more towels inside a duffel, but nothing else.”

  Her breath came in sharply. “I see.”

  “Some of the paper towels had been cut. I think they were wrapped around something sharp. Like worked obsidian blades.”

  “May I?” she asked, reaching for his palm.

  “Anytime.”

  Lina gave him a sideways look, but otherwise ignored him. Carefully she lifted the towel and sherd to her nose. “Smell is…odd.”

  “It was packed with cocaine inside a bag of cement mix. Could be some turpentine or jet fuel filtered through. That stuff stinks.”

  “I can’t be certain of anything about this sherd unless I do specialized tests.”

  “Expensive and time-consuming?”

  “Oh yeah. Even with money in hand, our lab connection has a waiting list and it’s the happy holiday season.”

  He breathed out a curse. “Figured. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter whether this is from a genuine artifact or a recent manufacture. What I need is your best guess if this piece could be related to the stuff that was stolen.”

  “Assuming that the missing man is the one who lifted the missing artifacts,” she said, then shook her head.

  “Go on.”

  “In order for that potsherd to have any significance, it would have to have come from the censer in your photographs. To assume that, you have to assume that this missing man didn’t have a regular sideline in stealing artifacts, that this robbery was a one-off.”

  “I love a logical mind,” Hunter said.

  “My logical mind isn’t loving this,” she said. “You’ve got about five big ‘ifs’ between you and even a circumstantially useful connection to the potsherd.”

  “There are some plus marks in the column.”

  “Really?”

  “Two dudes came to LeRoy’s apartment. They spoke a Mexican Indian dialect and looked the part. Maya faces and bodies. Shorter than you. Darker. Expensively turned out. They wrecked the place and took the blue duffel where we found the paper towels. Then the dudes went invisible. The car they were driving was stolen.”

  “Charming,” she muttered. “They could be disappointed middlemen who have nothing to do with your case.”

  “I hate a logical mind.”

  “Then don’t look in the mirror when you shave,” she said.

  A slow smile changed Hunter’s face. “Let’s get some food. You can tell me what you’ve learned about the artifacts while we eat.”

  “It won’t take that long.”

  “Was afraid you’d say that. Let’s go anyway. We still have to eat. Or at least I do.”

  Hunter followed Lina out of the building. The instant he was outdoors, the feeling of being watched made his neck and shoulder blades tingle. Without making a fuss about it, he checked out the surroundings. No one seemed to be staring at him.

  Lina was looking around, too. She wasn’t as subtle about it as he was, but she got the job done.

  Wonder if she’ll talk about who is following her. If anyone is. I sure can’t make the bastard.

  Hunter led her to the parking lot where his well-used Jeep waited. She swung into the vehicle like a pro. And she was smiling like it was a tricked-out Italian sports car.

  “Most women don’t think much of this rig,” Hunter said, starting it.

  “Most women have never driven on unpaved tracks in the Yucatan. This is great transport. The tires have deep tread,
the oil pan won’t bleed out on a sharp rock, and the engine sounds like a jaguar.”

  “Don’t say another word. I’m halfway in love.”

  Lina gave Hunter a startled look, smiled rather uncertainly, and shut her mouth. The feeling of being watched prickled over her, but no matter how long or how often she looked behind her, she couldn’t see anyone who seemed to be paying special attention to them.

  Philip would be proud of me, Lina thought unhappily. He senses spies everywhere, trying to steal his precious knowledge. He’s just never caught anyone doing it.

  As Hunter gained speed on the metro roads, the hot, unusually dry wind coming through the open windows began to take apart Lina’s sleek bun. By the time they arrived on the wrong side of town and parked, her hair was flying around like a witch on Halloween. She tried to smooth the black mess back into a bun.

  “Let it go,” Hunter said, catching her hand in one of his. “It’s beautiful loose.”

  Her pulse kicked at his touch, the look in his eyes.

  “It looks unprofessional,” she said.

  “I don’t see anyone here with an academic scorecard.”

  Lina hesitated, then shook her hair fully free. His smile didn’t help her pulse rate one bit.

  Hunter got out of the Jeep and came around to her side before she had picked up her purse. He reached in and lifted her out. His hands were hard, his strength startling. Before she could object, she was standing on the sidewalk. She stared at Hunter and revised her first estimate of his strength. The man must have serious muscles beneath his loose shirt.

  “This way,” he said, slowly releasing her.

  He tucked his hand into hers and led her down the street. Everywhere she looked, the signs were in Spanish, with the occasional English word used like an exclamation mark. It was the same for the language of the people standing in groups, getting into cars, or smoking and watching the world go by. Hats, boots, jeans, work shirts. Occasional flashes of colorful clothes and hot black eyes from women in high heels. Otherwise, the visible population was overwhelmingly male and Latin.