17

“Ek Balam,” we said together and stared at each other in amazement. She took the little figure from my hand and regarded it with a frown.

“Of course. The Maya loved word plays and hidden meanings. But there has to be something else, something beyond just the name.”

“The glyphs,” I agreed, taking the object from her. “But what can they say that’s so important?”

She shrugged. “There are only five or six glyphic elements here. That’s not much of a text. And if you’re right about who this represents, odds are the glyphs are just the name itself.”

“Maybe.” I rewrapped the jade and put it back into my pocket. “I wonder. Tell me, why would the Maya have buried this to begin with, and why in Temple A?”

“Who knows? Maybe as a kind of dedication offering? Maybe as an offering for good luck?”

“Was the rest of the temple ever excavated?”

“No. Gregory was leaving it for next season. It wasn’t one of the more impressive structures. Just a small stone house on a platform a couple of feet high. Probably the temple of some minor god, or maybe the house of a priest.”

I thought for a moment. Leeds had wanted me to have the jade. And the day before, Astrid Bancroft had appeared at Lavelle’s, looking for me. Suddenly a piece of the puzzle fell into shape.

“Micah, what are you thinking?”

“Leeds may have shown this to the Bancroft girl,” I said. “He had a working knowledge of glyphics, right? Maybe he deciphered it and told her what it means.”

Katherine chewed at her lip. “That makes sense. So what are you suggesting?”

“It’s too late now. But tomorrow, early, maybe you could call her in. Come up with some pretext, like the exhibit, something she won’t be suspicious about. You can show her the glyphs. If she’s seen them before, her face will show it. If she has, hit her hard. Tell her you don’t want any nonsense. Tell her you know she knows the meaning and insist she tell you.”

Katherine smiled slyly. “My no-nonsense schoolmistress role, huh? The one I use on sophomores and first-year graduate students?”

We left quickly and there was no campus policeman waiting when we closed the big front doors. I checked the street as we pulled in at Katherine’s place and was relieved to see that Scott’s car was not there. She made coffee and I called O’Rourke. He told me he’d gotten the Captain.

“He wanted to know who I was and why a lawyer was calling him about something that wasn’t any of my business. When I tried to explain, he wanted to know why you didn’t call yourself.”

There was an apologetic note in his voice and I understood; the Captain could be hard to deal with when he wanted.

“Thanks a lot, John. Is there anything new on the case?”

“Nothing really, unless you want to count Cora Thorpe’s little gesture.”

“What do you mean?”

“She pitched a fit in my office today, claimed I wasn’t doing enough. Told me I was fired, which was a little late, since I’d already quit.”

“Really broken up, eh?”

“I think she was carrying onions in her purse to help her cry. She almost made me feel sorry for Thorpe.”

I replaced the receiver. Cora Thorpe. There was no denying someone had used the Thorpe car to kill Leeds. I thought of the muscular body of Claude St. Romaine, lying on the floor of the cabin, and another piece slid into place. Now, if it would only stay …

I started to call the Captain and then stopped myself. A call could be traced and I didn’t need to leave any record of being at Katherine’s place. Damn. Well, at least he was home, although I had a suspicion it was against medical advice.

“Bad news?” Katherine asked, bringing me a bourbon and water.

“My father’s been having some health problems,” I said. “Nothing much.” I took the glass. Then I told her about Cora.

“I’m not surprised. Do you really think she could have done it?”

“It’s possible. But somehow I don’t think so, though she probably knows a lot.”

“Oh?” She sat down beside me.

“I think she left in Thorpe’s car and met St. Romaine. Then he let the killer use the car.”

“And he was killed because he knew too much?”

“That’s the way it looks to me.”

Her hand reached out, touched my arm. “But Micah, who could it be? This Cuban gangster you talked about?”

“Possibly, though his methods seem more direct.”

“Well, what about Astrid’s beau, Fred Gladney? I know he’s a bit of a wimp, but …”

“He was at Cobbett’s until two A.M.,” I said. “And what could be his motive?”

She stared at me for another second, apparently trying to make up her mind about something. Then she exhaled heavily. “I knew St. Romaine,” she said finally.

“What?”

Her hand dropped back into her lap. “Oh, not well. But I’d met him a few times. He came up a couple of years ago about making a donation to the Institute. He was pretty well off. He asked that it be anonymous. He didn’t want to be bothered by other people asking for money. Technically I broke a confidence by telling you, but what the hell?”

“How much did he give?”

“Two thousand dollars. Peanuts, compared to what he’s supposed to be worth. But, like they say, it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye. And it entitled him to the newsletter, reports of the progress of the excavation, the usual baloney.”

I sat back, holding one more piece of the puzzle. The trouble was that I didn’t know where to fit it.

I made a further call, this one to Sandy. She told me she was fine and to quit worrying. I told her to find out everything she could about St. Romaine and his family and then turned back to Katherine, but the couch was empty.

The plumbing rattled in the upstairs bath and I settled in with my drink, trying to fit the pieces together. I was still sitting there when I heard movement on the stairs and turned around.

Katherine was halfway down the landing. She had changed into a negligee and her hair was down around her shoulders. She hesitated and then, as I watched, came down another step.

I rose, my heart quickening. “Katherine …”

She raised a finger to her lips and I knew that she didn’t want me to spoil the moment by speaking. I went up the steps and halted, inches from her. She reached out timidly and took my hand, then turned around and led me the rest of the way up the steps.

I woke up in the middle of the night, the delicious lethargy of sleep falling away. I had a premonition of disaster. Fragments of dreams raced through my mind. I saw St. Romaine, crumpled on the floor, while Cora Thorpe snored on the sofa. I saw Cobbett cringing in the back of Sandy’s car. I saw a terrified Karl Hahn waving a gun he didn’t know how to handle. But the dream that had linked it all together was irretrievably gone.

I looked down at the woman beside me. Her face was troubled, and even as I watched she shifted position slightly and her lips mouthed a name.

“Gregory …”

It stabbed into me like a knife and I got up and went over to the window. I looked over at my paralyzed left arm. I had come to terms with the injury long ago and usually it did not affect me, but now, for some reason, I felt lacking.

When I awoke, Katherine was already downstairs, dressed. When I came down she gave me a quick smile and then went about preparing breakfast as if nothing had happened. I could see that she was struggling and so I kept quiet, watching her exert the self-control that had first gained my attention. We sat across from each other, drinking coffee in silence, and when the silence finally seemed ready to shatter, she rose calmly.

“Well. I guess you’d better give me the jade if I’m going to confront Astrid.”

I had known it was coming and I’d prepared my speech. “I’d rather not,” I said evenly and watched the hurt register. I got up and went to her.

“It’s not that. It’s because the damned thing is too dangerous. Two people have been killed. I don’t want a third, especially not you. If Astrid’s seen the thing, and if she and Leeds have examined it, she’ll know what the glyphs mean.”

Katherine hesitated, then nodded. “Of course. You’re right.” She went to the mirror in the hallway and smoothed her blouse, as I traced the glyphic inscription onto a piece of paper. “I’ll call you at about ten or ten-thirty,” she said, taking the paper. “As soon as I find something out.”

I started to kiss her but somehow the iron self-control got in the way. Instead, I watched her go out and sat back down on the sofa, feeling helpless.

I called Sandy but the line was busy. I paced some more and went to the bookcase. Maybe there was something I could read to help me pass the time. I found a book about modern Maya culture and leafed through it.

What had Katherine told me when this had all started? That she served also in an editorial capacity for the MARI series? That meant she had had a hand in producing all the green-bound volumes. I took down another one. It was an abstruse treatise on Mayan settlement patterns. Another was a survey of coastal Yucatán. And one was a book by Gregory Thorpe, on the significance of astronomical alignments to the ancient Maya. I opened it at random and saw a map of a Maya city, showing projected alignments of different celestial bodies from a central observation point. I put the book back and called Sandy again. Once more the line was busy.

I didn’t like it. She was entitled to talk on the phone, but it had been twenty minutes. I paced some more, trying to occupy myself with the pieces to the puzzle.

Ek Balam, the Black Jaguar, had been the mythical lord of the city Thorpe had excavated. A jaguar figure of black jade had been excavated at one of the city’s temples. People were willing to kill for the jade figure. Why? I took down the last volume in the series. It was also by Thorpe, entitled Initial Excavations at Ek Balam, 1982–1987.

Inside the back cover was a fold-out map and I spread this before me on the coffee table. Each building was designated by a letter and I found Temple A in the central section of the site. I turned the map around, hoping some significant configuration of elements would leap out at me, but nothing happened. I refolded the map, placed it back in the book, and put the book back on the shelf.

I tried Sandy’s number again and this time I got it to ring. But the voice that answered wasn’t Sandy’s. It belonged to a man and I knew it from somewhere.

“Hello? Who’s this?” Something about the peremptory tone struck a chord of familiarity.

I hesitated, weighing my options.

“I said who is this?” the voice demanded again.

Finally, my concern for Sandy won out. “Mancuso,” I said. “What are you doing there?”

“Dunn? Is that you? Goddamn it, man, you’ve put your foot in it now.”

“Mancuso, damn it, where’s Sandy? What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell us. We got a call about a hell of a racket going on here. Patrol officers found the place wrecked and blood everywhere.”

My breath went out and my legs started trembling. “And Sandy?”

“Your friend’s disappeared.”