Title Page
Trouble
Down Mexico Way
A Blanche Murninghan Mystery
Nancy Nau Sullivan
“I was a girl walking in a world of colors,
of clear and tangible shapes.
Everything was mysterious
and something was hiding;
guessing its nature was a game for me.”
—The Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
Durham, NC
Copyright
Copyright © 2021, Nancy Nau Sullivan
Trouble Down Mexico Way
Nancy Nau Sullivan
www.nancynausullivan.com
Published 2021, by Light Messages
www.lightmessages.com
Durham, NC 27713 USA
SAN: 920-9298
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61153-375-0
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61153-376-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021932340
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without the prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One DOWN
Chapter Two AND DEAD
Chapter Three SOME VACATION
Chapter Four BEWARE OF THE SNAKE
Chapter Five THE GUY AS BIG AS A DOOR
Chapter Six THE PILLOW MAN AND THE ANGELS
Chapter Seven MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE MUMMIES
Chapter Eight WORK IT
Chapter Nine THE RIDE OUT
Chapter Ten FIESTA
Chapter Eleven THE UNREAL
Chapter Twelve TO THE CASTLE
Chapter Thirteen HIDDEN PLACES
Chapter Fourteen GOING IN
Chapter Fifteen GOING OUT
Chapter Sixteen NEXT FLOOR, PLEASE
Chapter Seventeen STUFF IT REAL GOOD
Chapter Eighteen THE MISSING
Chapter Nineteen POZOLE
Chapter Twenty WRITE A WRONG
Chapter Twenty-One OUT ON THE HACIENDA
Chapter Twenty-Two THE DOCTOR IS IN
Chapter Twenty-Three BRING ME THE HEAD OF A GOAT
Chapter Twenty-Four IN THE PIT
Chapter Twenty-Five THE SHED
Chapter Twenty-Six WAKE-UP CALL
Chapter Twenty-Seven THE PROPOSITION
Chapter Twenty-Eight STAND-OFF
Chapter Twenty-Nine PILLOW TALK
Chapter Thirty CROOKED BOOK
Chapter Thirty-One GONNA TAKE A LITTLE TRIP
Chapter Thirty-Two HOT SAUCE
Chapter Thirty-Three PANIC IN THE PALACIO
Chapter Thirty-Four LOST ART
Chapter Thirty-Five ARRIVAL
Chapter Thirty-Six ALL TIED UP RIGHT NOW
Chapter Thirty-Seven THE SLIP
Chapter Thirty-Eight RED POOL
Chapter Thirty-Nine MUMMY HAS A TICKET
Chapter Forty THE BUG BITES
Chapter Forty-One THE END IS SOMETIMES THE BEGINNING
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
If you liked Trouble Down Mexico Way you’ll love these books
Dedication
To my students in Mexico,
and for the missing
Chapter One
DOWN
It was a good day for taking in the ancient Mayan exhibit but not so much for finding that dead body.
Blanche Murninghan didn’t know what she was walking into. Besides, she wasn’t walking; she was practically running through the streets of Mexico City.
u
Blanche was exhilarated after the flight from Tampa to Mexico, toting a backpack full of T-shirts, underwear, and books. She and Haasi had checked into their hotel and then set out at a fast pace for the Zocalo, the main plaza in one of the largest cities in the world. First up was a visit to a rare exhibit at the Palacio Nacional. Blanche was anxious to see the thousand-year-old art objects. But the city! She was inside a kaleidoscope. The people, the cosmopolitan women in tight dresses and high heels and men in suits and the indigenous people in native dress, the mariachi music pouring out of restaurants, the smell of roasted corn and traffic fumes, the balloons and bubbles and mimes painted gold. She was an island girl and more accustomed to the sounds of birds and waves and the wind in the pine trees. Her head was spinning.
“Jeez, Blanche, slow down.” Haasi laughed. “That old Mayan stuff isn’t going anywhere.”
“Just look at this place. It’s hoppin’.”
At the edge of the Zocalo, they dodged traffic. Blanche could hardly see across the huge plaza. People swarmed out of the Metro stop. Cars and bikes and all sorts of wheeled vehicles zoomed past. She and Haasi joined the chaos. They had a long list of places to visit and only a couple weeks to absorb it all.
They stopped under Diego Rivera’s wide swath of brilliant turquoise and red and gold murals at the Palacio. The wall in the stairwell all the way to the second floor blazed with Mexican history from ancient to modern times: a black-haired woman wearing a mantel of white lilies, a stepped pyramid hovering in the distance. Kings and revolutionaries on horseback, Moctezuma and Frida Kahlo.
“You have to wonder how he came up with all this!” Blanche said. The topknot of black curls wobbled and came loose.
Haasi aimed her camera at the murals. “Seriously. He didn’t exactly have photos to work from.”
“But there were cave paintings and art…”
Haasi nodded, clicking away. Inside the Palacio, soft lighting gilded the ancient pottery and figures in the glass cases. The unique Mayan collection included hundreds of artifacts assembled from digs in the Yucatan, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Blanche peered at the first display. “Hey, Haas, look at this. Organized games.” Sure enough, the players were lined up on a field, kicking around a ball. Or a skull? In the next display, a crocodile and dog were laughing together.
The adjoining room was quiet, and crowded, the walls bare except for posters of the clay masks and native costumes.
“Kinda crowded in there,” said Haasi. “Maybe check it out later?”
Blanche backed up against a wall and shivered. “Did you feel that?”
“No, what?”
“Well, it’s not the air conditioning kicking in.”
Haasi knew that look, one of trepidation and curiosity. “Don’t be silly, Blanche. You afraid of ghosts or something?”
“Something.”
“Let’s have a look.” Haasi linked her arm through Blanche’s, and they squeezed in among the visitors.
Everyone seemed to be staring down at the floor where a wide expanse of polished glass stretched from wall to wall. The light under the glass cast a greenish glow on the faces of the people jostling each other. Blanche and Haasi pushed ahead and looked into a pit of ancient bodies dressed in tattered fabric. Mummies! Mounds of earth and broken wood and stone surrounded the dead in the macabre arrangement in the floor, a drape of black fabric and a Spanish cross finished it off. The eyes were nothing but sunken, shriveled spots — just a touch of ghoulishness that made Blanche’s stomach churn.
She couldn’t tear away. “This is just plain eerie.”
There were four. A mother cradl
ed an infant in dusty, pitiful love. Next to them were two adults with bony fingers crossed on their chests. The skin on one was bronze, another chalky white. The bodies were straight and stiff, as brittle as ancient bark, with ragged wrappings, some of it strips of disintegrating cloth, or cloaks, that once tightly bound the bodies.
“Poster says they’re adults. They’re so small. How could they know they’re adults?” Blanche looked at Haasi for an answer.
“They’re not all adults. Look at that baby. Hard to tell if it’s even human. It’s just creepy, but I guess we end up looking like that. A pile of dark leather and bones.” She squinted at the signage. “They were found in some vein of minerals. Preserved them some. But not much, if you ask me.”
“Says they’re only a couple hundred years old.”
“Only?”
Haasi shrugged. “They could be descendants of the Maya. Or Aztec.” Her arms shot out and nearly knocked off the baseball hat of the man next to her. “They’re on loan from a museum complex outside Mexico City.”
The poster detailed the discovery of the long-lost mummies among bones in a crypt. Blanche leaned closer to the floor. She didn’t move for several minutes.
“Really, Blanche. Don’t be pressing your nose up against the glass. Bad luck.”
“For someone,” she almost whispered.
Haasi did not like the sound of that. “What is it?”
“Don’t think this one’s been dead hundreds of years. He, or she, or whatever, might’ve bought it not too long ago.”
“What are you talking about?” Haasi peered into the floor.
“See that pink plastic thing above its right ear? They didn’t wear pink plastic hair clips back then.”
On closer inspection, Blanche noted the difference in the texture of skin between the One of Pink Plastic and the other mummies. “The face is shrunken to beef jerky like the rest, but it appears to have a newer sheen.”
“As if the dead could look fresh,” said Haasi. “Maybe, the exhibitors decided to do its hair up with that clip.” But there was no conviction in her voice.
“Oh, right, and why not do the nails, too. They sure do need it.” The fists curled on this one, and the nails were short or missing on the others.
Blanche stood up, and now several in the crowd were pressing in. A woman with large teeth and bright eyes screeched. “¿Es posible?”
Haasi smiled. A nervous smile. “So the wild ride begins,” she murmured.
Blanche had a slightly crazed expression for which Haasi often forgave her. That was Blanche. But among her many physical attributes was an eagle eye. She stood straight, hands on her hips. “I’d swear. This one is different. It’s not like the others!” Blanche frowned. “This mummy is a new one?”
Chapter Two
AND DEAD
The buzzing started up behind Blanche. “What’s going on, Haasi?”
“I don’t know. Curiosity? What have you started?” Haasi turned to see people jamming into the room with the ancient bodies. She tugged at the back of Blanche’s denim jacket. “Now what? Any ideas?”
“I think we should find somebody in charge,” said Blanche.
“Right. But I think he’s found us.” The two stood close together, pressed against the sign that touted the origins of the exhibit.
“¿Qué pasa?” The small man dressed in black jacket and trousers, his clothes painted on, hurried toward the crowd. His long thin fingers waved people out of the way. His voice hit a high note that did nothing to calm the group. “Por. Favor.”
The toothy woman pointed at Blanche. “¡Es ella!”
The black-clad man ignored the gesticulating and bowed to Blanche. “Raúl López, assistant to the director of the Palacio Nacional.” He extended his hand. “The pleasure is mine.”
At little more than five feet, Blanche was almost eye level with Señor López. She shook his hand. Gravely. “Blanche Murningham, and Haasi Hakla, my cousin. We’re visiting from Florida…” The two waited for a response, but all they got was a rather forced smile and another peremptory bow.
Señor López scanned the room and smoothed a hank of hair off his forehead. He had remarkable eyebrows that skittered up and down while the hairpiece didn’t move. “Bienvenido. Encantado,” he said, but he looked far from enchanted. “What seems to be the … issue?” His clipped English was impeccable. He lowered the volume and tried to corral the discussion to just the three of them.
“This person. This very dead person…,” Blanche began. “Are you sure he, or she, is ancient, like the others? It would appear to be, well, newer.” Blanche scratched her head. She had no idea how long it took to make a mummy, but she would hazard a guess. “Maybe only a few weeks, a couple of months dead. Tops.”
“That’s preposterous,” said Señor López. His eyes darted over the crowd. Blanche took his arm and steered him gently in the direction of the glass enclosure in the floor. “Look. Pink plastic? Do you see it? Above the ear? Don’t think that hair clip was around back then. Plastic wasn’t around back then. And the skin. It’s visibly different than the others.”
No question. To discern that the object in all that tangled, dry black hair was a pink hair clip was one thing, and to further speculate about the skin was another. Doesn’t López know this? The thought that he might know it was frightening.
The man leaned over the glass. For one second. “Again, preposterous.”
The crowd didn’t agree. “¡Lo veo!” Someone, and then another, seemed to confirm Blanche’s discovery.
Raúl waved people out of the sala. He looked at his watch. “We will indeed look into it,” he said. “Pero, ahorita. ¡Vámonos! It’s almost closing time.”
Haasi had been oddly quiet, scanning the crowd. Blanche could sense Haasi’s radar even as the tension ramped up. Nonchalantly she broke away and meandered around the edges while Blanche stood firm, determined not to give in to the blustering López.
Haasi was back, whispering in Blanche’s ear. “Give me a minute. I’ll catch up to you.”
“Now what?” Blanche watched Haasi’s black braid disappear among the shoulders and heads of the visitors.
Blanche set her lips in a thin straight line, the one a person did not cross. “Señor López, it’s not anywhere near closing time.”
For response, Raúl took Blanche’s arm and nudged her toward the door. “Señorita, look what you’ve started!”
“I haven’t started anything.” Her irritation began to bubble up.
“Perhaps they didn’t prepare the exhibit properly. Perhaps that hair clip was dropped into the case accidentally,” he said, all the while hustling her along.
“Well, in that case, I don’t think the piece would be embedded above the ear.” She shook his hand off her arm, firmly, and stopped in the doorway. “By the way, is the person a man or woman?”
He sighed, visibly relieved the topic had shifted. “It says, right here on the sign, the person is a woman.” He looked Blanche up and down. “Approximately, someone of your age and height.” His voice took on an even frostier tone.
Haasi appeared. “Come on, B, let’s go.” She jerked her head slightly. And winked? Haasi had found out something, some little tidbit that would add to the whole drama. Blanche read it in her expression.
Blanche turned to Raúl. “I think someone should inspect this mummy, or corpse, or whatever it is,” she said. “And report it to the authorities. The police, maybe. Something’s not right.”
At this suggestion, Raúl’s face drained. “You continue to press this. Forgive me, but who are you?”
“A concerned citizen?” No, not really. A concerned tourist?
“Your claim will be investigated. To disprove such a thing, I’m sure.” Raúl tossed his head. “In any event, it is not our responsibility. The mummies are on loan to us, and we will advise our partners at the cultural center who arranged the exhibit.”
The matter seemed settled, but Blanche wouldn’t let go, even while Haasi tugge
d at her sleeve. “You do that,” said Blanche. “Clearly, the textures, the nails, the hair, all of it. This one is different from the others. You must see it.”
Several people hung on. Eyes were on them. The toothy woman yelled. Again. “Tell him, tell him, señorita!” She turned to her groupies who were nodding furiously. “¡Verguenza!”
“Yes, a shame,” said Raúl, eyes cast to the ceiling. “This is exasperating! Such a ridiculous fuss.”
Haasi scooted around in front of Blanche, teeth clenched. “Time to go, señorita. Show’s over.”
Raúl’s face was red, and he was seething. The long, white fingers waved like direction signals, shooing them out the door. It was time to go. Everyone.
His jaw tight, he spoke pointedly to Blanche. “¡Adiós!”
“To be continued, señor,” she said.
Haasi hovered over Blanche’s ear. “More later. Come on.”
They joined the crowd and shuffled out the door in one large clump.
A tall, bulky man stood off in the corner of the exhibit, casually leaning away from the crowd. At first he turned to watch Blanche, then the black-clad man, and finally Haasi. He didn’t react, except for his eyes, and his ears, that seemed to follow every nuance on the faces and every word of the conversations and exclamations exploding around him.
Haasi held tightly to Blanche’s arm as they hurried down the stairs. Blanche couldn’t tell if she was cursing or praying. Blanche felt a sudden need to pray for the dead.
Chapter Three
SOME VACATION
“Blanche. Let’s try to relax.” Haasi let out a deep breath. Her voice rose above the crowd rushing out of the subway, but it was the distracted tone that caught Blanche’s attention.
She eyed the agitated expression on Haasi’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you later. Let’s find a place to sit. And eat.”
The two crossed the Zocalo in front of the Palacio. They gawked at a military display of vehicles and equipment. Large tents were set up. It was a curious contrast to the vendors selling embroidered linen and carvings and toys from carts.
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