Chapter 28

  

“What are you doing, Jones?” Lane said, trailing after me.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to talk to Naveen.” I kept walking. “Naveen can’t do anything to us here in the crowded street.”

We dodged traffic to make our way across the dusty, crowded street. This central part of town with traders and retail shops was much busier than the coastal region I’d explored the night before and the historic areas we’d visited that morning.

Instead of looking surprised to see me, Naveen hailed me in greeting. He wore a white muslin suit and a broad-rimmed hat.

“Nice to see you keeping up,” he said to me. “And you must be the art historian.”

“How did—” I began.

“You think you’re the only one who can do their homework?” Naveen answered.

“What are you doing here, Naveen?” I asked. Lane remained uncharacteristically mute.

“I have just as much right to be here as you do,” Naveen said.

“You think you have the right to murder someone?” Lane said. He took a few steps to the side. Did he think Naveen was going to try something?

“Nice try, but I didn’t kill anyone,” Naveen said calmly. “Don’t worry. I don’t think Jaya here has the guts to kill anyone, either.”

I wasn’t sure if I should take that as a compliment or not.

“Steven’s son is crazy,” Naveen said. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have killed his father. Connor doesn’t care about the treasure, though. He won’t bother me when I find it.”

“You admit Steven came to see you to translate the map,” I said.

We all dodged out of the way as a family of three on a bicycle came precariously close.

“Of course,” Naveen said, dusting off his slacks. “There’s no crime in that. There’s also no crime in beating you to the treasure.”

“What did Steven tell you about the treasure?” I asked. And why wasn’t Lane questioning him along with me?

Naveen answered with a thin smile.

“He didn’t tell you enough to find anything,” I said. “I knew it. You didn’t make the Kochi connection until I naively told you about the Chinese fishing nets. Then you bribed the archivist at the University of Kerala when you realized what I was on to.”

Naveen’s smile faltered at that. “I figured it out,” he said, his smile returning. “I’m not saying anything else.”

“I’m the one you stole the information from to get here!” I said, feeling terribly petty, but this was Naveen Krishnan. There was no way I was going to let him best me.

“All’s fair in love and academic war.” He tipped his hat and walked off.

  

“You were right,” I said to Lane after Naveen’s figure had disappeared down a narrow side street. “I wouldn’t put it past him to kill for this treasure. Not for the wealth, but for the academic glory.” I shivered in spite of the sticky heat.

“Hmm,” Lane said.

“You could have helped me out with him,” I said. “I thought that’s what you were here for. Maybe he knows where the shop we’re looking for is. He must have made a copy of the map.”

“I was doing something more important,” Lane said.

“Which is?”

Lane pointed to a faded wall a few buildings past where we stood. “I was making sure he didn’t turn around and see that.”

A modern sign with a new name hung above the bright blue door that was the shop’s main entrance, but the weather-worn wall had once borne the words Marikayaer Paravar Craft Emporium.