“What are you doing?” he asked as she headed for the bathroom.
“Getting dressed,” she said. “If there’s anyone who knows anything about stars, it’s Dr. Friedman.”
With that, she closed the bathroom door, leaving Derek sitting on the bed staring at his untouched Coronas.
Tensions
Eva leaned against the whitewashed adobe wall, listening to the rainwater drip from the hotel’s orange roof tiles. Her cigarette was still loosely cradled between her fingers at her hip. She’d yet to light the damn thing.
Breaking the habit had somehow become habit itself. She’d learned that if she could manage to divert her mind, the cigarette became less nagging. But there was still something physical about smoking that had to be satisfied, and for Eva, that something was holding a cigarette. She supposed it was similar to food addicts who admit they weren’t hungry; they just needed something to chew on. Eva just needed something to hold.
The magic didn’t always work, but this time it seemed to be holding its own as she stood there, staring into the dark shadows veiling the garden plaza. She let her own thoughts dissolve with each steady drip of water that fell near her feet.
Plat! Plat! Plat!
She spotted a relatively dry wrought iron chair sitting beneath the plaza’s lone avocado tree and considered relaxing there, but decided against it. She was comfortable enough against the wall where the fragrance of orchids and jasmine floated in the damp, rain-washed air, mingling with the earthy scent of wet stucco and fresh corn tortillas wafting from the taqueria next door. The odors were as soothing as the metronome of raindrops; as comforting as that unlit cigarette.
John Friedman’s voice drifted through the open door of the next room where warm yellow light spilled across a puddle that hollowed the raindrops to a fluid duwop, duwop, duwop. The door was propped open by a shoe, a sign that the room’s air conditioner was still on the fritz. Eva could just see John sitting at a table in his pasty yellow room. Peet stood across the table from him and both men were studying something spread atop the table. Their tense voices drew upon her curiosity through the alternating plat, duwops.
It had surprised her to learn that Peet was a college professor. He just didn’t seem to fit the type. He was too…outdoorsey, and his good looks didn’t get past her either.
John, on the other hand, fit the bill according to everything she imagined a professor to be. He was older, more reserved. Everything from his sturdy posture to his educated speech indicated that he was a man accustomed to knowing more than you did. However, despite John’s condescending nature, Eva liked him. There was a fatherly air of self-assurance that could only be asserted by a man comfortable with his place in the world. She felt drawn to him like a gullible child. Perhaps it was the stark white sheen of his hair, or the pleasing tone of his voice. Whatever it was, it caused something deep within her to want to believe everything he had to say. She wanted to trust him.
She supposed that’s why she found John’s dislike for Peet so curious. Of course, he was far too professional to exaggerate the obvious but Eva knew silent loathing when she saw it. She was well-rehearsed in the practice herself. The dismissive eyes, the drawn expressions, the neutral tones. They were all signs of someone’s distaste for another, the same attitude she’d taken toward her father. But that was family business. When it came to professionals, such posturing could only be symptoms of intense competition.
That has to be it, she decided. The friction must be academically related. She tucked her cigarette away—one more victory against the habit—and started for their room. A little academic friction wasn’t enough to scare her away. In fact, she might find their differences enlightening. She didn’t have to go to college to appreciate opposing theories of working scientists.
Besides, what else could they possibly contend for?
* * * *
“I underestimated you, Anthony,” John said, shaking his head as he smoothed a visitor brochure of Teotihuacan across the table. “Even I didn’t expect such irresponsibility from you.”
“Do you honestly think the police would have traced the effigy down to Mexico by now?” Peet defended. “They’d still be up there combing Salt Lake City. We’ve come miles ahead on our own.”
John gave him a wry glance.
“With your help, of course,” Peet corrected.
“Let’s not forget we’d still be searching SaltLake too if it weren’t for Derek’s phone call.” John waved an arm through the air as if to close the curtain on the diverted topic. “Regardless of all that, it’s inconceivable how you failed to contact the authorities.”
Peet hesitated, but John wasn’t about to let this one go. He needed to get to the bottom of the man’s actions, or rather, lack thereof. John needed it for himself, to settle suspicions and silence doubts.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” he pressed.
Peet looked suddenly uncomfortable. John expected him to escape any minute through the open door—escape like a coward—but he didn’t.
“I didn’t want an investigation to…” Peet frowned with frustration and John sensed he was trying to choose his words carefully.
“What?” John asked. “What didn’t you want it to do?”
“I was afraid an investigation would complicate matters.”
John shook his head. “You’re not making any sense, Anthony. What’s to complicate?”
Peet was pacing like a caged lion, his face pained with indecision—or was it a look of guilt? John couldn’t begin to guess what was rolling through the man’s mind.
“The whole situation’s messed up,” Peet confided. “It doesn’t look good that the effigy was stolen the night I removed it from the museum.”
John still wasn’t quite following. “So you were afraid the police would name you as an accomplice?”
“No. It’s more complicated than that.”
“Anthony, you’re wearing on my patience.”
“I took the effigy for Lori. I opened the lab for Lori. I can’t explain how Derek knew we had the effigy, or how he even got in, but Lori and I were supposed to be the only two in the building that night.”
“I don’t see how that would complicate a police investigation.”
Peet huffed irritably. “It’s not the police I was worried about.” He hesitated, and then as if to start over, he said, “You see, there’s this performance review—”
“I knew it!” John bellowed, temporarily startling Peet out of his anxiety. “So the rumors are true.”
“Now hold on—”
“You’re not facing a performance review, are you? This is a fraternizing investigation.”
Peet’s shoulders slumped. “Yes.”
John slammed a fist on the table. “Damn it, Anthony. You’ve been down this road before!”
“I know, but this time—”
Peet’s attention darted for the door where Eva now stood, watching them.
John straightened in his chair, caught off guard by the sudden need to compose himself. His probing would have to wait for later, though he’d received enough information to confirm his suspicion. Quite frankly, he foresaw the rest of the conversation disintegrating into nothing but pointless excuses on Peet’s behalf, and he was willing to put that on hold.
He turned to the door and offered a welcoming grin. “Eva,” he said, “won’t you join us?”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Not at all. Please come in.”
John turned back to the brochure he’d completely unfolded across the table. “Anthony and I were just about to plan tomorrow’s agenda in Teotihuacan.”
He turned back to Peet who was staring back, looking somewhat bewildered as though amazed by his sudden shift in temper. John glared back.
This wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
Conjunctions
Peet couldn’t have been more thankful for Eva’s interruption. Upon her appearance, John dropped their ar
gument like a lead weight, but Peet knew him well enough to understand that the diversion hadn’t eliminated the subject. It just managed to delay the fireworks to come.
If Eva had overheard their discussion, she didn’t let on. Not that it mattered much to Peet. He’d long given up the illusion that he could alter a person’s impression of him. Depending on the other person’s viewpoint, what they saw was what they got and there was no use trying to change that. Whatever Eva thought of him, she at least kept it to herself.
She glanced down at the map spread across the table. “Is this Teotihuacan?”
“What’s left of it,” John said. “In its day, the city was one of the largest in the world, covering approximately eight square miles and—”
“This is what’s been excavated,” Peet summarized, indicating the ruins plotted along Teotihuacan’s central avenue.
“Indeed,” John said sourly, as though spoiled of an opportunity to expound. He pointed to a square at the top of the map. “At the northernmost end of the site we have the Pyramid of the Moon. As you can see, the larger Pyramid of the Sun, lies along the Avenue of the Dead.”
Eva stiffened. “Avenue of the Dead?”
“It’s what the Aztecs called it, believing the temples along this avenue were the tombs of dead priests.”
Peet surveyed the long avenue himself. He, too noticed the large square just a short distance from the Pyramid of the Moon, followed by a series of tiny squares and rectangles resembling a variety of temples and ruins trailing down both sides of the two-mile avenue. He also noticed several parking lots, a visitor’s center, even a small restaurant.
Eva’s finger landed on a third pyramid near the visitor’s center at the southern end of the site. “The Temple of Quetzalcoatl,” she read aloud. “My father could have hidden the effigy there. The police said they found his body nearby.”
“That seems to make sense,” John agreed. “But didn’t you say the police found his pickup parked in this lot near the Pyramid of the Moon?”
Eva nodded.
“Then Mr. Gaspar never made it to the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl,” Peet said. “But if that was his destination, why didn’t he just park at the visitor’s center? Looks like he would have saved himself a lot of walking.”
“I think we’d best stick to the smoke in the serpent’s mouth,” John said. “If we don’t find the effigy in the cave beneath the Pyramid of the Sun, then we can search other possibilities, including the Temple of Quetzalcoatl.”
“How do we get to the cave?”
John rubbed his chin as he scanned the map. “That’s the problem. There’s no access readily available to the public.”
“Much less an eighty-four year old man,” Eva added.
At that point, Lori barged into the room with an urgent expression, like she was in the middle of finding something important. Derek, on the other hand, followed her in like a bewildered sidekick.
“The New Agers are congregating on May 20th,” Lori blurted, stopping only when she reached the table. “That’s tomorrow. That’s when they expect the Age of Quetzalcoatl to begin!”
“That would explain the Ten Coatl date symbols on Mr. Gaspar’s newsletter,” John said, sitting back in his chair.
“Why May 20th?” Peet asked.
“Derek thinks it may have something to do with the stars.”
“Shaman Gaspar was always watching the night sky,” Derek added. “He was a nut when it came to astronomy. Last November he flew all the way down to Chichen Itza just to look at the stars.”
“He wasn’t just looking at random stars,” Eva interrupted. “He was watching the stars directly over Chichen Itza.”
* * * *
They all turned to Eva like she’d just sprouted claws or something. Even Derek looked surprised by her input.
Eva sighed. “Believe it or not, I remember some of what my father told me.”
John raised a finger in the air as if to punctuate an important point. “Your father was watching the zenith above Chichen Itza,” he said thoughtfully.
Eva shrugged, taking a seat next to Derek on the nearest bed. “Sure, if you want to get scientific on me.”
“Of course he’d be interested in the zenith,” John continued. “The zenith was the throne in the sky and the Mesoamericans were deeply concerned with heavenly bodies intersecting that space, particularly if they conjoined the sun there.”
“So what do you think he expected to see in the zenith above Teotihuacan?” Derek asked.
“The Pleiades.”
Derek didn’t look so convinced when he turned back to Eva. “Do the Pleiades mean anything to you?” he asked.
Eva nodded reluctantly. Of course she knew about the Pleiades. Hell, she grew up with them the same way other children grew up with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. If there was anything that came second to her father’s observations of the zenith, it was the movements of the Pleiades.
“It only makes sense that Mr. Gaspar was interested in the Pleiades,” John thought aloud. “Their importance was rooted in Mesoamerican minds even before the time of Teotihuacan, perhaps evolving from the Olmecs near the Gulf of Mexico. And, as we’ve already pointed out with the Aztec sunstone, Teotihuacan was built in alignment with the Pleiades somewhere around AD 150.”
He rose to his feet as though he were about to address a lecture hall—as though his thoughts were better prompted by the motion of his pacing.
“Now due to the earth’s rotation, the Pleiades are hidden behind the sun’s glare for a period of six weeks this time of the year. Their reappearance on the eastern horizon just before the sunrise was a notable event for the Mesoamericans. However, during the era of Teotihuacan’s construction, the Pleiades appeared on the horizon the same morning the sun was due to rise to its fullest height over the zenith, which was an important event in itself.”
Lori glanced at the torn scrap of newsletter that had been folded in her hand. “That still doesn’t explain why Shaman Gaspar believed the Age of Quetzalcoatl begins on May 20th.”
John’s head was bowed, heavy in thought. When he looked up again, he turned directly to Derek. “Do you have internet access on your cell phone?” he asked.
Derek snorted and pulled a BlackBerry from his pocket. “What kind of journalist would I be if I didn’t?”
“Look up the National Society of Astronomers,” John instructed. “Their website contains a brilliant star mapping program. Perhaps if we look at the sky directly above Teotihuacan, we might find the Pleiades there.”
Eva watched as Derek’s thumbs worked over his phone. Within seconds a strange diagram flashed across the screen but Eva couldn’t make sense of its random lines and dots.
Derek hesitated, his stare intent upon the display. There was a puzzled look on his face. “According to this, the Pleiades cross the zenith on May 23rd. That’s three days after the New Agers meet.”
John reached for the phone. “Let me see that.” He studied the screen. “You’re right. So why was Mr. Gaspar so concerned with May 20th?
Peet crossed his arms across his chest, his shirt stretching across the span of his broad shoulders. “Where exactly were the New Agers meeting?” he asked.
“At the Pyramid of Kukulkan,” Derek said. “In—”
John snapped his fingers. “In Chichen Itza!”
“You mean they’re meeting at the same pyramid that’s in the picture in your house?” Lori asked. “The one with the snake shadow?”
“That’s the one,” John said, his thumbs excitedly punching the key pad on Derek’s phone. “And that just might explain tomorrow’s importance.”
Eva wasn’t following their enthusiasm. “How does that explain anything?” she asked.
“Chichen Itza’s latitude is north of that of Teotihuacan’s,” John explained, his fingers still working over the phone. “Now, since the zenith is dependent upon your location on earth, stellar events within the zenith change with your latitudinal position. In other words, if
I adjust the zenith position to Chichen Itza… Aha! There it is! The Pleiades will be directly over Chichen Itza at exactly noon tomorrow, May 20th!”
Derek sprang to his feet and glanced over John’s shoulder. His eyes brightened. “Check that out!”
“What?” Lori asked. She, too was crowding in for a peek.
Derek pointed to the screen in John’s hands. “The Pleiades aren’t the only stars that will be directly above Chichen Itza tomorrow. The sun will be there too!”
* * * *
“That’s it!” Lori squealed, nearly perforating John’s eardrums. “The Age of Quetzalcoatl begins when the sun and Pleiades finally meet!”
John’s initial excitement suddenly waned. Lori must have noticed for she turned to him, her eyes dancing, and said, “C’mon, Dr. Friedman. It all makes sense. You said yourself that Teotihuacan was built according to the Pleiades rising before the zenith sun. Maybe the relationship between the two determined the birth of Quetzalcoatl! Now the Pleiades and the zenith sun are coming together, which means Quetzalcoatl has finally ascended to his throne!”
John shook his head. He understood Lori’s excitement, but there was a hitch to the idea.
“The conjunction of the sun and the Pleiades has been occurring over Chichen Itza since the dawn of the new millennium,” he said in a tone completely abstract to Lori’s exhilaration. “And they’ll continue to do so for approximately two hundred years.”
“So what are you saying?”
“This year’s conjunction is not the beginning of anything.”
“There’s another problem,” Peet interrupted. “Chichen Itza was a Mayan city. Why would Eva’s father care about what’s going on there?”
John turned to him to stem a misconception. “Well now, that I can explain,” he said. “The ruins of Chichen Itza reveal a strong Toltec influence in its art and architecture.”
“Well,” Lori said, “the Mayans did adopt the Calendar Round from the Toltecs. I’m sure they could have adopted other cultural aspects too.”
Effigy Page 18