Human Sacrifice

by Cindy L Hull

George grabbed the handrail as the elevator stopped at a lower floor. Two women anthropologists he recognized but did not know entered, speaking Quiché Maya. Both wore the brightly colored shirts and blouses characteristic of their region of Guatemala. George greeted them in their language, but they switched to Spanish to grill George on the death of the young anthropologist. Brad stood quietly, perched at the elevator door, as if hoping for a quick get-away.

  George disappointed him. Exiting the elevator, he motioned to Brad, “Can we talk?”

  Brad looked at his watch. “I have to hurry to return in time for Eduardo’s lecture. My rental car is ready.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” George said.

  “What’s on your mind, George?”

  “Tanya.”

  Brad frowned at George. “We have to do something about her.”

  “What do you mean?” George asked.

  “She has no sense of decorum. She talks to us like we’re students, not senior colleagues. It would be a mistake to give her tenure. She’ll be nagging us to death for the rest of our careers.”

  They stopped at an intersection where a beleaguered police officer maintained order with frantic hand gestures and a whistle.

  “You know that’s not our decision,” George said. “Linguistics hired her and grants her tenure.”

  “But we’ll have input,” Brad insisted.

  The crowd forming behind them pushed them into the road as the whistle blew for them to cross. “She is a little…informal,” George conceded.

  “You know that she’s a problem for Jamal. Her behavior borders on harassment.”

  “It seems the relationship has been mutual. I can’t imagine Jamal being forced to date a young pretty faculty member.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Brad said as they approached the rental office. He grimaced as he noted the tourists crowded around the counter or sitting in metal chairs, flipping through vacation magazines. “I gotta go.”

  George opened the door for Brad and followed him in. The blast of air-conditioning brought goosebumps to George’s arms. “You’re not getting to that counter any time soon.”

  Brad reached over the heads of an elderly couple to pull a paper tab from a machine—Number 35. He moaned as he saw number 28 on the screen above the heads of the two employees patiently explaining to their customers how to navigate Merida’s one-way streets. He returned to George’s side, lowering his backpack to the floor.

  “I actually wanted to talk about something else,” George said. “Jamal asked if I would support Tanya for the position of museum curator.”

  Brad smiled. “He did, did he?”

  “Did he talk to you about it?”

  “No. What did you tell him?” George asked.

  “That Madge had the position until she retires.” George pursed his lips, thinking. “Why do you think he went over your head to come to me?”

  “Because he knows I would laugh at him. Tanya? Curator? She has no experience.” He smiled again. “But this proves my point. She’s manipulating him.” He looked up at the numbers on the board.

  “One more thing,” George said as Brad glanced at his watch. “Madge could be a strong ally in getting funds and contributors if you gave her the chance. I understand that she has not been included in your communications with Eduardo.”

  Brad’s face hardened, and his jaw tightened. “Do you know what she’s doing?”

  George adjusted his glasses and looked at Brad. “What?”

  “She’s researching the provenance of the artifacts the college already holds, and the artifacts designated by Eduardo’s family to be loaned to us.”

  George furrowed his brow. “That’s her job. We can’t take the chance of holding undocumented artifacts. You know that.”

  “She doesn’t trust me?”

  “It’s not a matter of trust, Brad. It’s protocol.”

  Brad sighed and pointed to the number board. “I gotta go.”

  George relented. “Well, have a great day.”

  He waved to Brad, who waved back, squeezing his tall frame past an elderly couple who sat along one wall and a probable newlywed couple nuzzling on a small bench. George left the building, feeling the warmth of the morning sun on his face. Now, where could he find a computer with a good browser?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Cody and his rescuers settled into a cab for their return to the city center. Tanya had jumped into the front seat, leaving Cody pinched between the two older, less sleek women. The odor of perspiring bodies wafted through the cab, despite the open windows. Cody rested his head against the seat, eyes closed. The three women sat silently, watching the sights from their respective windows: streets now filled with locals and tourists, stores with merchandise overflowing onto the sidewalks. The taxi jolted them out of their musings as it skidded to a stop at a red light. The driver uttered an expletive in Spanish.

  Recovering her composure, Tanya peered back over her shoulder at Cody and said, “So, what did the detective ask you?”

  Cody, now wide awake, shifted in his seat. “He wanted to know if I had any reason to kill my lover,” he responded bluntly. “I told him we had argued that evening, but that I didn’t push him off a pyramid.”

  His hostile tone surprised Claire. “I guess he had to ask,” she said. “I doubt he really thinks you would come all the way to Mexico to kill him.”

  “That’s what I told him.” Cody stared ahead, eyes widening as the taxi veered strongly to the left to avoid a woman stepping out into the street. “He took my passport.”

  “What?” Madge asked. “Why?”

  “Standard procedure,” Cody said, slumping back into the narrow wedge of seat between Claire and Madge.

  “What else did he ask?” Tanya said.

  “He asked if Paul was upset or depressed about anything.” Cody paused here and looked at Claire. “Paul would not kill himself.”

  The taxi lurched to a halt in front of the hotel, and the foursome stepped out into the steamy heat. Cody reached in his pocket, but Madge had somehow found her wallet in the folds of her bag first and paid the driver.

  Tanya took a quick glance at Cody, then turned away from him. “I need to walk.”

  Madge looked at her watch. “It’s lunch break. Shall we find a café?”

  Tanya agreed, but Cody turned toward the hotel. Claire declined, remembering the photographs she had promised Detective Salinas. She waved to her colleagues and joined Cody at the hotel entrance.

  “Would you like coffee?” Claire asked Cody, more as an offer to talk than a desire for anything to drink.

  “No, thank you. I have a lot to do.” He counted on his fingers. “I have to call the airport to ask about flying his…Paul’s…body home, call my parents and tell them I no longer have a passport, pack up Paul’s belongings, and call his parents again to calm them. They are frantic.”

  He seemed calmer since they left the police station, not exactly optimistic, but purposeful. His shoulders were straight and his mouth firm. “And I seriously need a shower,” he added. “I have never been so scared in all my life.” He attempted a smile.

  Claire touched his arm. “Be sure to tell Paul’s parents we are very sorry about their son’s death. We’ll call them soon to talk with them.”

  In the lobby, they met a crush of conference participants, filing out of the meeting rooms for the lunch break. They milled into colorful polyglot groups. She and Cody followed the flow of traffic that led to the elevators. They stood aside until the area emptied out, the din of overlapping conversations decreasing as the elevators swallowed the hotel guests and delivered them upward.

  Claire peered at the young man as they waited. Despite his disheveled appearance, there was something different in his demeanor. Was it possible that Paul’s death had released him from something?

 
“Can you tell me about Paul?” Claire asked.

  Cody’s eyes moved around the crowd before he spoke. “You have to understand that I loved him, but he was a hard person to decipher.”

  “In what way?”

  “It took me awhile to put it all together, but when I met his parents it clicked, and I began to understand him.” They moved a few inches closer to the elevator and Cody whispered, “His parents own a car dealership. His father, Paul Senior, is a strong believer in the axiom, ‘Knowledge is Power.’ He said it several times over the weekend we visited them. He knows everyone in the small town, and he is a master salesman. He can push buttons like you wouldn’t believe. It’s how you get ahead, that’s what he thinks. When Paul was growing up, his dad always told him to know his enemies, so they couldn’t hurt him.”

  He looked behind him before continuing, “Paul upset his parents when he announced he was gay. He was in high school. His mom came around, as moms do, but his dad worried more about how it would affect his business than his sexual orientation itself. His father urged him to stay in the closet, like most parents do, mine included. He wanted Paul to go into the family business.”

  “But Paul wasn’t interested in the car business?”

  “No, he loved anthropology. When I asked him why, he said that anthropology teaches that cultures have diverse values. He said that in many cultures, homosexuality is accepted, and homosexuals can be spiritual leaders. Is that true?”

  Claire nodded. “Some Native Americans use the term “two-spirit” to describe men and women who feel that they have dual genders. Some cultures and religions accept the idea of third genders.”

  “Paul said that the men sometimes take on women’s occupations.”

  “And women two-spirits can become warriors,” Claire said.

  Cody’s eyes brightened just a little as he heard this. “I think this understanding gave him some hope.”

  “What was he like as a person, Paul Junior, I mean? Obviously, he won your heart.”

  “Paul is…was…very complex. He was very smart and engaging. I loved that about him, but he could put people off. I think you saw it. He wanted…needed…to know about others’ work and personal lives, almost like a defense mechanism. If he knew a secret about someone, they would have a connection.… He asked questions that made people uncomfortable. But I don’t think he did it with bad intentions…at least…” His words trailed off as they neared the elevator doors and people pressed around them.

  “At least?”

  “Nothing.” An edge came into his voice. A touch of anger, or frustration.

  “Did he use knowledge against you?” Claire whispered.

  “Sometimes,” he admitted as he glanced at the numbers flashing above the elevator doors. “He never threatened me,” he said cautiously and softly. “And it never meant anything.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  With the camera memory card tucked away in her purse, Claire left the hotel and was again assaulted by a wall of heat and the incessant blare of vehicle horns and police whistles. She turned toward the central plaza where she remembered seeing a Kodak store, the name reminiscent of the golden age of film cameras. She found the shop at the edge of the plaza, tucked between a tourist boutique and a small café.

  Downloading her photographs into the kiosk, she obtained a receipt from the clerk who indicated a twenty-minute wait. Reluctantly, she exited back into the stifling heat and walked toward the central plaza.

  Merida, like most colonial Latin American cities, comprised multiple plazas, each dominated by a parish church and lined with the colonial homes of the Spanish landlords. In Merida, the central plaza was a city-block garden with trees shaped by topiary and brilliant flower gardens crisscrossed by sidewalks.

  Congested one-way avenues flanked all four sides of the plaza. Along these avenues, the conquerors built spectacular stone structures documenting their political and religious power: The Catholic Cathedral, Governor’s Palace, Colonial administration, and the Casa Montejo, the residence of the family that conquered the Yucatec Maya. In modern days, interspersed between these structures, and indeed still part of them, stood small tourist shops, ice-cream parlors, a lottery and newspaper kiosk, and a video arcade, all defying any logical city planning.

  Claire collapsed onto a cast-iron bench facing the cathedral, basking in the shade of a small tree. It took a mere two minutes for the first hammock salesman to approach her, a stick of a man, with a creased face, bent forward under the weight of the bulky load strapped to his back. He held a colorful hammock, unfolded and slung over his arm, to demonstrate its size. Claire wondered how he had identified her as a tourist, rather than a native. Perhaps, she chided herself, the conference identity badge she’d forgotten to remove when she left the hotel had tipped him off.

  Offering the hammock to Claire to touch, she replied as she always did in Spanish, “No, thank you. I have one at home.”

  To which the salesman replied, as they always did, “Oh, pero siempre se puede utilizar otro.” She could always use another.

  Claire loved this plaza, suffused with memories of her internship year in Merida, her first adventure away from her family—but in search of her heritage. Here, she had met Roberto Salinas. And what was she going to do about that?

  She stared at the massive cathedral, looming over her from across the avenue. She thought about her conversation with Paul—just yesterday—that all humans are shaped by their culture and beliefs. Unfortunately, she had lost her faith: in herself, her chosen career, and in the possibility of finding love again.

  Claire’s recent conversation with her daughter had shaken her confidence further. She closed her eyes and remembered Cristina, arms crossed, seated on Claire’s sofa, watching as her mother finished packing her suitcase for her flight to Merida.

  “Why Africa, Cris, not Paris or London?” Claire had pleaded.

  “That’s where the sick children are, Mom. They’re not in line at the Louvre.”

  Claire couldn’t dispute Cristina’s logic. Her own mother had lost the same argument before Claire had left for Mexico the first time. She had been younger than Cristina was now.

  “It’s only for six months,” Cristina reasoned, “and I’ll be working in a hospital…with doctors and nurses. What can happen?”

  “Malaria, Ebola, AIDS,” Claire had responded, deflated.

  Claire had tried to hold back tears, the grief from Aaron’s death resurfacing, the memories of his horrible struggle and her emotional turmoil as she had watched him fade away. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You’re not losing me, Mom.” Cristina had slumped from the sofa onto the floor, the luggage sitting between them. “Dad’s death taught me to live life now. We never know what’s in the future.” She too had blinked back tears, and mother and daughter sat misty-eyed, facing each other across the suitcase.

  “We’ll talk when you get back from your conference,” Cristina had promised. “You can help me plan the trip and make sure I take every inoculation imaginable.”

  Remembering this conversation, Claire knew that her daughter was right. Hadn’t her own goal as a mother been to raise an independent daughter?

  Hunger finally gripped Claire, and she decided to eat lunch before picking up the photos and returning to the hotel. Crossing the plaza, she saw George seated at a small sidewalk café with Laura Lorenzo. Neither of them noticed her approach; they were deep in a conversation that she couldn’t hear over the street noises.

  “Can I join you?” Claire pulled out a chair and sat, without waiting for an answer. She sensed that she had interrupted something important. The awkward silence broke when a waiter approached with a menu. Glancing at it briefly, she ordered bottled water and sopa de lima, the famous Yucatecan chicken soup.

  “Hello Claire,” George said, when the waiter had left. “Laura and I have been di
scussing the Mayanist program.”

  Laura nodded. “I would love to visit Keane College.” She paused, blushed, then said, “But I have to go now. I have some errands to run before Doctor Ramirez’s lecture.”

  She started to reach for her wallet, but George stopped her. “It’s my treat. I invited you to join me.”

  Laura thanked him, waved goodbye, and left in the direction of the market.

  Claire raised an eyebrow at George. He ignored her and pulled a small notebook out of his shirt pocket. He flipped the pages and finally looked at his colleague. “So, it seems that you skipped the morning program, too.”

  Claire grimaced. “Guilty.” The waiter returned, and she paused to taste the delicious soup. “After our excursion to the police station, we were exhausted.”

  “Police station?”

  “Madge called you.”

  George pulled out his phone and pursed his lips. “I missed her call. What happened?”

  Claire summarized their morning with Cody and Detective Salinas, and the now-deleted YouTube video.

  “YouTube?” George harrumphed and pursed his lips again. “It seems we all skipped out,” he said.

  “Who else?” Claire asked.

  “Brad went to the beach to work on his keynote address.”

  “I didn’t think he was the beach type.”

  “I didn’t either.”

  “What did you do this morning?” Claire asked, straining to look at George’s notebook open on the table next to him.

  “Tanya, damn her, got me thinking about Paul. I wanted to learn more about his research. He showed us that slideshow on his computer, and it intrigued me.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “His research centered in Motul as a center of regional tourism, separate from the larger urban areas and archaeological sites. During his presentation, Paul implied that he knew these villages where Jamal and Brad worked. Normally we would call that good interviewing, but why was Jamal so upset at breakfast?”

  “It was different,” Claire admitted.