Effigy (29 page)

“I only meant to borrow it.”

“Yeah, and you had intentions of bringing it right back, I know. You already told us.” She crossed her arms which only accented the sensuous curves within her robe. “And just how did you get into the anthropology building in the first place?”

Derek shrugged. “Sometimes it pays to know the janitors. I just explained to ol’ Harold that I needed to retrieve a book I’d left in the archaeology lab. He loaned me his keys, I found a shirt that could pass for a janitor’s uniform in case anyone saw me, and I carried the effigy out in a garbage sack to avoid suspicion. Nothing to it really.”

Lori didn’t look amused. “And while you were pulling this little stunt did it ever occur to you that you could get kicked out of school, or were you going to worry about that while you were sitting in jail?”

Lori returned her cream to her bag. Her face was glowing, her eyes charged.

Damn it if she wasn’t hot!

“I guess it all happened too easily to worry about complications. So I screwed up. But I’m going to fix this.”

“Tell that to Eva. Her father might still be alive if you hadn’t stolen that effigy for him.”

That one stung.

“I’m aware of the consequences,” he relented. “Look, I may not be able to bring Shaman Gaspar back, but there’s a chance I can bring the effigy back. But I need Friedman’s help.” He finally accepted the corner of the bed and reached for her hand. “I need your help.”

Lori’s stern expression softened ever so slightly. It was a cautious yield, but a yield nonetheless. “How do you expect to find the effigy?” she asked in a more consenting tone.

Derek sighed. “I don’t know. I guess we start with
Teotihuacan
.”

Lori stepped back toward her jeans draped over a chair, and plunged her hand into a back pocket. She withdrew the beige note from the Acatzalan newsletter which she’d rescued from the restaurant table.

“Maybe you can start by explaining these symbols,” she said.

Derek knew the symbols before she pointed them out. They were the two snakes that bordered the title of every Acatzalan newsletter. They were fitting, Derek thought, since Shaman Gaspar enamored his followers with the feathered serpent.

“What’s to explain?” he asked. “I believe that’s Quetzalcoatl.”

Lori retracted the note and lowered herself onto the bed, one foot folded beneath her, the other dangling off the side. By the pinched look on her freshly scrubbed face that wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

“It’s not Quetzalcoatl,” she said. “It’s the Toltec calendar date, Ten Coatl, which happens to land on May 20th.”

“That makes sense.”

Lori looked up in surprise. “It does?”

“Sure. That’s the day of the New Ager’s huge gathering.”

“What gathering?”

“To ring in the Age of Quetzalcoatl.”

Lori thought this over, mindlessly flipping the note between her fingers. Sitting there in her robe and towel she was as beautiful as a swan perched on a nest. And she was irresistibly close. Close enough that Derek could smell her fresh skin. He was tempted to touch her, to mold his hand around the knee exposed beneath the hem of her robe. He had the urge to kiss her, to gently part the cotton wrap at her waist and—

“The new age starts May 20th?”

Lori hadn’t noticed his wandering eyes. Her mind was calculating again. “Why not January 1st, or the Toltec new year equivalent?”

Derek shrugged and tried to shake his mind free of Lori’s bathrobe. “I’m sure it has something to do with the stars,” he said. “Shaman Gaspar was always watching the stars.”

“The stars, huh?”

The mattress released a muffled creak as Lori sprang to her feet and gathered her clothes off the back of the chair.

“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
Salt
Lake
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.