Effigy

by Theresa Danley

  Peet noticed the hem of the blouse’s sleeve gracing the smooth skin of her upper arm.

  “Yes,” he said, blocking the sensuous image from his mind. “One dot represents day one, two dots represent day two. Day five was represented by a bar. See here.”

  He pointed randomly at July 6, 1721, named Five Jaguar on the Mayan calendar and labeled with its corresponding hieroglyph and a bar standing vertically beside it.

  “Sort of like roman numerals,” Lori added. “A bar and a dot represents six and two bars represent ten.”

  “Exactly.”

  Lori took control of the mouse and scrolled down through the calendar. The numbers flashed by in their cycles of thirteen with the day names cycling slightly slower to the right. Beside the names were the hieroglyphs themselves, none of which resembled the snake symbol they’d found on the stationary taped to the effigy’s storage container.

  Lori must have recognized the irregularity too, for she frowned, still scrolling down the long calendar. She picked up the scrap of stationary Peet had placed in front of the monitor. Her finger tapped the twin bars just to the left of the serpent hieroglyph.

  “This has to be a date,” she said. “It’s ten, whatever this snakey-looking symbol represents. But why isn’t it on the calendar?”

  She picked up the mouse again and continued to scroll down.

  “Don’t waste your time, Lori. I’ve gone through it.”

  Lori didn’t stop, and Peet watched a moment as the Gregorian dates tracked along the far right of the computer screen. Lori had managed to scroll well beyond the year 2009 and was tediously entering 2010.

  “You’ve seen all the date symbols you’re going to find in this calendar,” he insisted.

  “I know,” she said. “I just want to see what today’s date is on the Mayan calendar.”

  Peet waited as the computer continued to scroll. Lori slowed her progress through 2011. Three hundred and sixty five days later she’d entered 2012. When she hit May on the Gregorian calendar, she clicked each day individually until she found May 17th.

  “Seven Wind,” she read aloud.

  Peet found the information interesting and meaningless at the same time. Lori must have also found it less than enlightening for she finally leaned back in her chair.

  “So much for our ransom note idea,” she said in a discouraged voice.

  Peet closed the program and retrieved the disk from the drive. “Not so fast,” he said. “There’s another calendar on this disk that looks similar to this one, but it’s incomplete.”

  “Do you think it’s the third Mayan Calendar?”

  “Maybe. Or it could be another version of the Tzolkin Calendar. The calendar we just looked at was Yucatec Mayan. The Quiche Maya use this calendar as well, but some of their day symbols are slightly different.” He picked up the scrap of stationary from the desk. “This hieroglyph could be from the Quiche Mayan calendar.”

  “How are we going to know for sure?”

  “I know someone who might be able to help us.”

  Lori looked hesitant. “What will you say when they ask where that note came from?”

  “He doesn’t have to know about the effigy, if that’s what you’re asking,” Peet insisted. “It’s our only chance before we go to the police.”

  With a heavy sigh Lori hesitantly rose to her feet. “What do we have to lose?” she said as she started out of the room, the summer blouse flowing to her hobbling movements.

  Peet grabbed her arm and the delicate fabric brushed his skin like a lover’s caress.

  “Wait a minute,” he said.

  She turned and looked at him. It was an inquisitive glance, far more academic than sensual, but enough to snap Cathy out of that blouse and insert his student back in it.

  He hesitated. “It’s too cold to be wearing that outside,” he said awkwardly. “Let me find you something warmer to wear.”

  Snowball Effect

  Peet felt restless. It was the kind of inescapable uneasiness one felt when they knew that no matter what they did, they were doing the wrong thing. He’d felt it all semester long, knowing the Board of Trustees were undertaking a performance review. But this was different. This brought a whole new level of intensity to his discomfort. In light of the effigy’s theft, and the fact that only he and Lori knew about it, a performance review suddenly seemed harmless.

  He tugged at the damp brim of his hat. Perhaps it was the dismal morning that delivered his solemn mood. No, he decided, the morning was merely complimenting a mood that had already been in the making.

  What was he doing? His better senses told him he should be going to the police, not driving through the damp suburbs of Salt Lake City. His conscience was warning him against bringing Lori along. Someone was bound to see them together and there would be no avoiding the fraternizing charges then. He’d felt the warning when Lori came home with him to help search for the mysterious Mayan hieroglyph. Shoot, he’d been warning himself ever since he agreed to help her with the effigy.

  As he thought about the chain of events that led him to this very moment, he detected a catastrophic shift that turned his world into a tumbling snowball, growing with an accumulation of poor judgments. How could his life take such a drastic turn?

  “You’re awful quiet,” Lori said from the passenger seat.

  For the first time Peet wished she wasn’t so observant. He’d found little comfort filling the silence with his own thoughts and worries. There’d be less solace revealing them to her.

  “I’m hoping this won’t be a dead end,” he admitted, willing the statement to skip like a stone off the surface of his deeper concerns.

  “And if it is?”

  “We have no other choice but to go to the police.”

  Lori was silent a moment. Perhaps she was finally coming to terms with reason herself. After all, they weren’t exactly thinking clearly last night when they decided they could resolve the theft themselves. Now, in the light of day, the very idea sounded incredibly ridiculous.

  “We’ll be sacrificing our careers,” she said.

  Peet nodded. Sadly, he’d already come to accept the inevitable. So why wasn’t he turning the car back to the police department? Was it because there might be a glimmer of hope that could somehow salvage his career? Or was it Lori’s future he was trying to rescue?

  “Maybe, maybe not,” he said, trying to sound optimistic. “If the police locate the effigy and return it to the university, all may not be lost.”

  “That won’t happen overnight,” Lori said, and realistically, she was right. “In the meantime you’ll be instructing finger painting classes at the old folks home and I’ll wind up punching cows on my dad’s ranch.”

  Peet looked at her questioningly.

  Lori smiled. “The point is, it won’t be the end of the world.”

  “Finger painting at the old folks home?”

  Lori’s smile broadened. “Don’t worry. My dad sold his cows years ago.”

  Peet turned back to the street ahead of them. “You have a twisted sense of humor.”

  * * * *

  Okay, so I’m not good at lightening the mood, Lori decided. She’d never been much of a comedian.

  Dr. Peet slowed the car as they wound their way through a neighborhood lined with moderately sophisticated homes. A retirement neighborhood, Lori thought. The street was quiet and were it not for the dripping trees ripening amid the soggy spring lawns, there may have been a decent view of the mountains to the east.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you must be worried about your performance review.”

  “Let’s just say it’s been on my mind,” Dr. Peet murmured.

  Although his comment didn’t catch Lori by surprise, the tone of his voice implied something heavier, something more than he let on. Other than last night’s theft, she didn’t know what could possibly worry him. Granted, Lori didn’t know how a performance review was processed, or who even conducted one, but she suspected it
would be nothing more than a routine review of his work, which she readily rated an A+.

  “What’s to worry about?” she dared to ask.

  The look he gave indicated he’d already said too much. He returned to his driving with tense, discomforted lines bracketing his mouth. His eyes shifted from the road to the dash panel then back to the road again as though he was trying to avoid whatever thoughts were rolling through his head. But Lori held a persistent watch. If there was one thing Dr. Peet needed it was to get that burden was off his chest.

  “I swear it won’t go any further than this car.”

  Dr. Peet grinned, but there was a heaviness to it and Lori saw the conflict in his eyes.

  “That serious, huh?”

  He sighed in laden defeat. “They’re investigating rumors of fraternizing.”

  Lori sucked in her breath. “Oh. That is serious.”

  “Yeah. Serious.”

  Lori should have guessed as much. She’d overheard scores of rumors herself—from the idle swap of feminine curiosity over the mystery girl who’d stolen Dr. Peet’s heart, to the raucous wagering between the guys over how often the professor banged his students. It had flared into a wildfire from a spark ignited by a single Faculty Roast column.

  Personally, Lori had dismissed the gossip as sophomoric humor. She’d never witnessed anything within her professor’s behavior that would give all the drama any validation and she certainly wouldn’t have expected Dr. Peet’s superiors to conduct a performance review over it—unless, of course, they found something more concrete to warrant such action.

  “This review is because of those rumors?” she asked.

  “That’s all they have to go on.”

  “That sounds pretty weak,” Lori observed, “unless, of course—”

  “Lori, I’ve never even looked at a student that way. Not since my wife…”

  His hands tensed around the wheel.

  Lori studied him. There was a sincerity to his voice, but it seemed somehow contradictory to his unfinished sentiment. Not since his wife what? Not since his wife left him? Did his wife catch him with a student? Did she leave because of previous fraternizing? That reasoning seemed to explain a lot, but at the same time, it didn’t match his character at all.

  “What about your wife?” Lori prodded, dreadful of what she might learn.

  Before today, she’d known nothing about Dr. Peet’s life outside of school. Over the course of time she’d come to know the names of most of her professors’ spouses, and the tiny details of everyday marital life that might be shared on occasion. But Dr. Peet’s life had always been untouchable, a closed book tucked away on some hidden shelf. In fact, Lori never knew for sure that he’d ever been married—that is, until she’d spotted the picture in his bedroom, and the dusty framed cross-stitch peeking out of a pile of books and field pads in the computer room. A wedding keepsake with the delicate stitching that read: “Anthony and Cathy Peet, two hearts joined together June 10, 2000.”

  Dr. Peet avoided elaborating any further details as he turned the wheel. They pulled into the driveway of a tastefully landscaped tri-level; his face still tense, his mind perhaps searching for a way to avoid Lori’s question. He slipped the transmission into park and switched the ignition off.

  “I don’t fraternize with students,” he finally said glumly. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  His hand returned to choke the wheel. Lori watched to see if he was even breathing.

  “Well, let’s go,” he said, throwing open his door.

  Lori stepped out of the car, lifting her jacket’s collar against the cold. The morning sun peered through a break in the clouds and glistened off of the home’s damp, cream-colored siding. It presented a welcoming effect as she followed Dr. Peet to the etched glass door.

  He pressed the door bell.

  After a moment of awkward silence, the door opened to a stout, aged man with an assertive posture distending his slightly protruded belly. He was well dressed and well groomed, his thick white hair carefully combed back to a satin shine. But when he focused his attention on Dr. Peet, his eyes reflected the cold, gray morning.

  “Dr. Friedman?” Lori asked.

  Dr. Peet feigned a weak smile.

  “Hello, Dad,” he said.

  Friedman

  “I’m not your father,” Dr. John R. Friedman growled, using his paunchy frame to block the doorway. “I told you to never call me that.”

  John thought he’d recognized the slate metallic Impala when it pulled into his driveway. There was no mistaking the intruder once Anthony Peet stepped out of the car. Were it not for the passenger who got out with him, John would have strongly considered ignoring the door. Had Martha been home, he would have.

  Peet looked at a loss for words as he stood there on the doorstep. Rainwater trickled off the brim of the archaeologist’s hat, a hat that could very well pass for an artifact itself. John dared to say the man looked pitiful, pathetic, like he didn’t even want to be there, and that wasn’t surprising at all. What concerned John most was the attractive young companion waiting just over Peet’s shoulder. She was Lori Dewson. There was no mistaking that either. John met her through the effigy research. She was a bright young lady. A promising archaeologist. Surely she would know better than to mix with Anthony Peet’s affairs.

  Lori looked surprised by the brief interaction between them, her curiosity ineffectively veiled with false indifference. John admitted he hadn’t exactly extended a warm welcome, but perhaps his reception would have been more accommodating had Peet forewarned him of this unexpected visit. Then again, what could he expect from an impulsive, if not careless man?

  Anthony Peet shifted uneasily. “Well, are you going to invite us in or are we going to talk out here in the rain?”

  John sighed impatiently, but stepped back to allow them entrance. Peet escorted Lori in first as though he intended to hide behind her.

  “Good morning, Miss Dewson,” John greeted, though he was well aware the time for feigned good cheer had passed. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Lori smiled, perhaps relieved by the break in tension. “Hello,” she nearly whispered.

  “May I take your coats?”

  Lori slipped out of her jacket and John accepted it, hiding his disapproval. He knew the jacket, though he didn’t say anything. But when he took Peet’s coat he made certain the man saw the cold reprimand in his eyes. John quickly deposited them and the ratty hat into the closet behind the front door.

  Peet cleared his throat. “Where’s—”

  “Out shopping. She won’t be back for a couple of hours.” A cold day in hell wouldn’t stop Martha from her errands, let alone a little drizzle in the weather.

  When John turned back to the living room he found Lori studying an enlarged photograph of a Mayan pyramid prominently displayed on the wall beside the fireplace. He grinned, pleased with her interest for it was his favorite picture, taken during the spring equinox several years ago.

  “They call that the Castillo down in the Yucatan,” John said. “Perhaps better know as the Pyramid of Kukulkan.”

  “It’s impressive,” Lori said.

  “Ah, but look closer and I think you’ll agree that the most impressive part isn’t the pyramid, but its shadow.”

  Lori leaned in closer. “The shadow?”

  John smiled, waiting patiently for her to see it—the play of light along the profile of the pyramid. Step by step the anemic shadow appeared to slither down the entire pyramid, only to connect with the head of a large stone serpent at the foot of the balustrade.

  “The shadow forms a snake,” Lori observed.

  “Precisely. That image appears every spring equinox when the sun aligns perfectly with the pyramid. It’s an amazing architectural feat of shadowplay.”

  He turned back to Peet who’d seated himself on the arm of the recliner near the heavily draped picture window. To John’s dismay, he’d rested an arm across the large telescope standin
g to the side.

  “But I’m guessing the two of you didn’t come here to discuss shadows.”

  What did they come for? John was still trying to wrap his brain around the instigator of this strange visit. Anthony Peet hadn’t stepped foot in his house in nearly ten years. John hadn’t spoken as many words to him in all that time. On the outside they were colleagues who’d had a falling out, but on the inside the grievance was far more caustic. So what could possibly be so important to prompt Anthony to leap the chasm of smoldering bridges?

  Peet stood, his hands plunging submissively into the pockets of his trousers. But when he took a step forward, all humbled appearances dissolved with the scrap piece of paper he’d retrieved. He held it out to John.

  “We’re hoping you can tell us what this is.”

  John eyed him suspiciously as he took the note. He unfolded it and found the word “ACATZALAN” boldly printed across its length. Whatever had been printed or written below had been torn away.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “We found it.”

  John studied him carefully. Was this a joke? The least Peet could have done was bring him something of archaeological value. Or perhaps even something astronomical. Surely he understood that it would take something significant to acquire John’s cooperation. After all, until Peet agreed to step away from the effigy project, John had refused to assist with the research—even if it was one of the greatest finds in southwestern archaeology.

  “Does this have anything to do with the effigy?” he asked.

  “No”

  “Yes”

  John turned back to Lori who was blushing at the sound of her voice contradicting Peet.

  “It’s for my dissertation,” she quickly explained.

  John wasn’t convinced. “And your research led you to a torn piece of paper?”

  “Do you know what it means?” Peet pressed.

  Inside, John wanted to throw this nonsense back out the door. He wanted to forever wash his hands of Anthony Peet, but something was stopping him. If someone had asked him right then and there what that something was, he’d admit it was Lori. Even in retirement he found himself unable to turn away a student. So that brake on his impulse had to be Lori. At least that was easier than admitting to his own inner curiosity.