Curse of the Painted Lady (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 3)

by K Patrick Donoghue

  “Me, too,” Anlon said. Looking past Antonio, Anlon spotted a police SUV fifty yards away. Next to the vehicle stood a man in a brown suit. His tie hung loose beneath an open collar. As the man stifled a yawn, Anlon asked Antonio, “That Emerson?”

  Antonio turned to follow Anlon’s gaze. “Yep, that’s him. He’s anxious to talk with you.”

  “Then let’s get to it,” Anlon said. As the two men walked toward Emerson, Anlon patted Antonio’s shoulder. “Thanks for sticking around, Skipper. Appreciate it.”

  “Of course. No way I’m cutting out till she’s back safe and sound,” Antonio said.

  Detective Emerson stepped forward and Antonio introduced him to Anlon. Moments later the three men hopped in the waiting SUV. Emerson sat in front with the driver. Anlon and Antonio were in back. Before the vehicle had traveled a hundred feet, Anlon asked Emerson, “Any news? Have you found her?”

  “No, not yet,” Emerson said. “We’ve got lots of people working it, but so far we don’t have much to go on. We’ve set up a tip line. The media is helping get the word out. Hopefully, we’ll get some credible leads.”

  “I assume you’ve talked with my neighbors,” Anlon said.

  “Those we could track down, yes. But we’re still trying to get in touch with a couple of them,” Emerson said.

  “I can’t believe no one heard a gunshot,” Anlon said.

  The detective agreed, then handed Anlon a photograph of Pebbles taken from the house. “Dr. Wallace helped us choose a picture of Miss McCarver to circulate internally. It’s the same one we’ve passed to the media. Is this the best one you have?”

  Anlon stared at the head shot. In it, Pebbles smiled broadly for the camera. Her hair, styled in a bob cut and colored royal blue, whipped in the wind. She wore a nose ring through one nostril, and several smaller rings lined the opposing eyebrow. Her head was turned slightly, making the hummingbird tattoo on her neck plainly visible. A beach towel was wrapped around her bare shoulders. On one of them, another of her six tattoos could be seen — the Japanese symbol for strength.

  The picture had been taken on Anlon’s boat on a beautiful summer afternoon. Pebbles and Jennifer had just finished a water-skiing contest in which Pebbles emerged victorious. Anlon, still recuperating from the injuries he had sustained at Stillwater Quarry, had snapped the pic while the two women exchanged good-natured barbs as Jennifer captained the boat back to his dock in Crystal Bay. The memory brought a brief smile to his face. Handing the picture back to Emerson, he said, “Her hair is shorter now, and the last time I saw her, it was purple. But, otherwise, it’s a good picture of her. I’m sure I have more recent ones on my phone, but I’m not sure they show her neck tattoo as good as this one does.”

  “If you’ve got something more recent, we’ll take it, with or without the tattoo,” Emerson said.

  “I’ll look in a sec, but first, I’d like some answers,” Anlon said, tired of the continued one-sided flow of information. “Tell me what happened, what you think happened.”

  “All right, I can give you a quick rundown,” Emerson said. “We think a male intruder entered your house through the patio door into the kitchen. It looks to us like Miss McCarver came upon him in the hallway between the kitchen and living room. There was a confrontation and he shot Miss McCarver as she tried to run away, at least that’s what the evidence suggests. After the shooting, the intruder searched the house, and, at some point, treated her leg wound before they left the house.”

  “Leg? How do you know where she was shot?” Anlon asked.

  “There were women’s shoes, socks and a piece of spandex in the hallway,” Emerson said. He paused, then added, “Without getting too graphic, they had blood on them, and the spandex had pretty obvious bullet holes in it, one where the bullet entered, the other where it came out. We also found two slugs in the wall by the front door, about a foot off the ground.”

  “She was shot twice?” Anlon asked.

  “No, we don’t think so. One of the slugs was completely clean,” Emerson said.

  Anlon cringed. He knew the detective was trying his best to avoid getting into gory details, but it was impossible to shut off the mental image of Pebbles lying in the hallway in pain, blood pouring from the gunshot wound.

  “I know it doesn’t offer much comfort,” Emerson said, “but the evidence suggests the bullet that hit Miss McCarver passed through soft tissue and exited in one piece. It means the shooter didn’t use hollow-point ammo. If he had, the bullet would have fragmented on contact and caused a lot more trauma.”

  “You’re right, it’s not comforting,” Anlon said in a sarcastic tone.

  The detective nodded and turned to look out the window. For the next several minutes, no one spoke. Anlon felt woozy from stress and lack of sleep, a condition that wasn’t helped by the road’s winding twists as the car climbed Mount Rose Highway. His mind replayed the scene that Emerson described: Pebbles walking through the house, coming upon a stranger, turning to run, and then, bam. Anlon buried his head between his hands. “Christ, I don’t believe this is happening. It’s insane!”

  During the detective’s recap, Antonio had been silent, but Anlon’s anguish led him to offer encouragement. “Hang in there, buddy. We’ll get her back.”

  “F—ing Stones!” Anlon said. “God damn it! I wish I’d never heard of the effing things.”

  Ludlow, California

  As dawn broke over the desert horizon, Charles Goodwin sat in the car outside the motel room. For the better part of an hour, he’d been listening to the radio and surfing the Internet on his tablet. From the on-air and online reports, he was pleased to discover limited mention of his prisoner’s disappearance, but he realized it was only a matter of time before news spread and an intensive manhunt commenced. That made it imperative to speak with Aja as soon as possible, for if they didn’t connect soon, he would have no choice but to kill the girl and dump her body in the desert. Aja would not like it, but Goodwin reasoned there were other ways to gain Cully’s cooperation, and Aja had no intention of letting her live anyway.

  He was tempted to break from the plan and call Aja, but he knew it was not advisable under the circumstances. She’ll call once she links up with Kora, he thought. He also considered calling Kora directly, but refrained. She was diligent enough to reach out if there was a problem on her end. It was better to stick with the plan, for now.

  “Who am I kidding?” he mumbled. The plan was already in shambles. Its success had hinged on speed, stealth and synchronization, and they’d failed on all counts. Aja’s catastrophic attempt to recover her “lost” relics from the bank had been enough to ruin the plan on its own, but she had made matters far worse at Ticonderoga. He could only hope the news reports were right and that Aja had eluded capture.

  If she had escaped with the “square, black stone” taken from the bank, as the news reports speculated, then part of their plan was still possible — the part that mattered most to Goodwin. On the other hand, thought Goodwin, the part dearest to Aja was in greater jeopardy, despite his success in nabbing the girl and the lyktyl.

  He wondered whether his prisoner, Little Miss Tattoos, realized how foolish it had been to wear the medallion in the photograph accompanying the announcement of Cully’s Indio Maiz discovery. And how asinine it was for her to share the name of the foundation Cully established to manage the preservation of the site and artifacts. When Aja had seen the photograph and Alynioria’s name, she had become enraged.

  Aja had viewed both as taunts from Cully and the girl. Their slights led Aja to squash Goodwin’s gentle coaxing of Evelyn Warwick and pursue a more aggressive strategy to recover her lost items. He had tried to dissuade Aja from the slash-and-burn solution she formulated, rightly pointing out the inherent risks in forcing matters to a head — risks that were now unpleasant realities.

  Yet, as Goodwin scanned the motel parking lot, he knew it was his own fault. He shouldn’t have contacted Kora so quickly after Cully’s minio
n visited him at the museum. He should have taken the time to learn more about Devlin Wilson’s murder before alerting Kora. Instead, he told her of the visit from Jennifer Stevens, and, in turn, Kora had told Aja.

  Goodwin angled the rearview mirror to spy the diner across the parking lot and then nudged it to check out the gas station/minimart beside the diner. He observed no signs of anything out of the ordinary and returned to ponder the chain of events that had led Aja to throw caution to the wind.

  It all began with the persistence of Devlin Wilson, Goodwin mused. Everyone in the archaeology community had known about Devlin’s “wacky” pursuit of the elusive “fish-men.” Even Aja had been amused by his determination to find proof of the mythical men who came up out of the sea to help survivors of the biblical great flood. Her tune had changed, however, when she learned Devlin had put out feelers searching for Aromaeghs, Breyloftes and later a Naetir. Although Devlin hadn’t referred to the Tyls by their given Munuorian names, the fact he’d zeroed in on them as part of his investigations had caused Aja to view Devlin as a potential problem. Goodwin still remembered her biting comment after he told her of Devlin’s inquiries: “Not another worm. Isn’t one enough?”

  It had been a reference to Jacques Foucault, the French archaeologist who had become an ardent bidder for the rarest of Tyls and a frequent visitor to dig sites where new Tyls had been unearthed. Goodwin had tried on many occasions to dispel Aja’s fears about Foucault. “He also buys meteorites, my Queen. He shouldn’t be taken seriously.”

  “You should not dismiss him so lightly. He may be using the meteorites to build his gensae. What if Evelyn has already sold him my Tyls? He may know!” Aja had fretted.

  “If she did…if he knew, my Queen, why would he still be hunting for Tyls?” Goodwin had countered.

  Aja had conceded Goodwin’s point but had remained skeptical of Foucault, worrying that he might eventually cross paths with Evelyn. Aja had even talked of killing him, but Goodwin had convinced her that it was better to let Foucault nose around. “He might lead us to her.”

  Goodwin laughed as he checked the tablet for messages. He found it ironic that Aja had worried so much about Foucault and Evelyn stumbling across each other, only to discover later that Devlin had been the one who connected with the handmaiden — and Evelyn had fueled his wild theories and investigations, ultimately bestowing some of Aja’s relics upon him.

  Thinking back, Goodwin recalled how stunned he was when Stevens showed him the pictures of Malinyah’s Sinethal and the statuette of Aja wearing her Taellin. Goodwin had heard of Devlin’s murder, of course, but the news stories about his death hadn’t roused Goodwin’s or Aja’s suspicions. The articles had depicted a murder driven by the greed of his research partner, Matthew Dobson, and several coconspirators. Among the coconspirators, only Klaus Navarro’s name had been familiar to Goodwin, and although Navarro was a collector of some repute, his interests were limited to Mesoamerican art, or so Goodwin had thought at the time.

  But, the visit from Stevens had changed everything. At first, Goodwin had been confused by her statement that Cully didn’t know where Devlin acquired either the Sinethal or the statuette. But the fact that Devlin had the pieces meant Evelyn had parted with them. It wasn’t until Goodwin had done more research into Devlin’s death that he made the discovery that led him to Evelyn’s, a.k.a. Anabel Simpson’s, doorstep.

  The discovery had been an article about Anabel’s kidnapping. Goodwin had read it months before but had not paid attention to a thumbnail-sized picture of Anabel included with the story. He supposed he had glossed over it given the poor quality of the photograph and the fact that Evelyn had aged significantly compared to the photos of her shared by Aja. But when he read the article again, looking closely for clues of Evelyn’s involvement, he had examined the photo with greater scrutiny and concluded it might be Evelyn.

  Aja had been bloodthirsty when Goodwin shared his suspicions. “I will rip her heart out!”

  “My Queen, revenge is meaningless unless we recover the Tyls. Let me try to get them back first. Then you can have your revenge,” Goodwin had said. Aja had reluctantly agreed.

  He remembered how courteous Evelyn had been when he showed up at her home. When Goodwin told her why he had come to pay a visit, however, her polite manner had vanished. She had denied his assertions in no uncertain terms and demanded that he leave. But the look on her face when he said the name Evelyn Warwick betrayed her indignation. As he stood to depart, Goodwin had given her his business card and said, “Look, I came as an emissary. Return what you took and no harm will come to you. Otherwise, she knows where you live now, and she will come for you.”

  He had given her a week to think on it, and then visited again. By then Evelyn had dropped all pretenses and told him she had destroyed the Tyls, so there was nothing left to hand over. When he informed her that he knew she had given at least two of the pieces to Devlin, and that Aja was aware the pieces were now with Cully, Evelyn had told him to leave Cully alone, saying, “He doesn’t have what she wants.”

  “Then give it to me,” Goodwin had advised. “You know she can’t do anything with it, anyway. Not until she finds the lyktyl. In all likelihood, it’ll never turn up.”

  But then the Indio Maiz article had been published, and once Aja saw the lyktyl dangling from his prisoner’s tattooed neck, it was the beginning of the end, leaving Goodwin at the edge of the Mojave Desert, with the girl, the lyktyl and a busted plan.

  Goodwin turned off the radio with a sigh and stepped out of the car. Yawning, he checked his watch and contemplated next steps. As there was nothing else he could do but wait for Aja’s call, he decided to grab a few hours of sleep. If he still hadn’t heard from Aja by noon, he would drown the girl in the bathtub and make his way back east. With that revised plan decided, he unlocked the room door and tiptoed inside, placing the privacy placard on the outer doorknob before closing the door. Inside, the room was still relatively dark. He could see the girl was still asleep, huddled under the blanket he had draped over her. He collapsed on the room’s other bed and drifted off to sleep.

  Incline Village, Nevada

  When the SUV neared Anlon’s home, he could see the entrance to his driveway was cordoned off with yellow tape and blocked by a police cruiser. Next to the cruiser stood an officer, who directed the SUV’s driver to pull off the narrow, two-lane road and park on the shoulder behind another cruiser and Antonio’s rental car.

  As they readied to exit the SUV, Emerson turned to Anlon. “Look, there’s no way to sugarcoat it: the crime scene is going to upset you. I wish I didn’t have to ask you to go inside right now, but I need you to go through every room in the house with me. Something might stick out to you that didn’t to us. Something missing, something out of place. Anything out of the ordinary.”

  “I understand. I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Anlon said, sickened by Emerson’s description of his home as a crime scene.

  Together, Antonio, Anlon and Emerson walked along the macadam path separating the property lines of lakefront homes from the road. When they reached Anlon’s driveway, Emerson turned to Antonio. “Dr. Wallace, I’d like you to stay here until Dr. Cully and I finish going through the house. Shouldn’t be too long.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Antonio said. Resting a hand on Anlon’s shoulder, he said, “I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

  “Thanks, Skipper,” Anlon said with a shaky voice.

  After Emerson instructed Anlon to avoid touching anything inside the house, he raised the tape for him to pass. In the driveway, they stopped by an evidence cone which marked the end of the blood trail leading from the house. Emerson pointed at the drops and said, “We think our suspect carried Miss McCarver from the house and put her in a vehicle at this spot.”

  “I thought you said he treated her wound,” Anlon said, scanning the line of droplets on the front steps.

  “He did. You’ll see what I mean when we go inside.”

&nb
sp; They were met at the bottom step by a crime scene technician who handed the two men disposable jumpsuits, gloves and shoe covers. After layering on the protective garb, and before they climbed the steps, Emerson said, “The front hallway and living room are the worst of it. Unfortunately, they’ll be the first things you see.”

  The strained look on Emerson’s face made Anlon queasy. He took a deep breath and said, “Let’s get it over with.”

  On the way up the steps, they passed a few more of the mini fluorescent cones. With Emerson leading the way, they walked through the open front door. Anlon froze. As much warning as the detective provided, Anlon was not prepared for what he saw. Blood was everywhere. It was smeared on the floor, splattered on the walls and streaked on the furniture. There was a crisscross of bloody footprints to and from the kitchen and others that crossed the hall and led to the front staircase. Blood-covered towels were strewn about the floor. Among them, Anlon spotted Pebbles’ shoes and socks, their surfaces coated a rusty color. On the hallway table next to a small stack of packages was an uncapped bottle of rubbing alcohol. There were a few packages on the floor, two closer to the living room and the other near the kitchen doorway. Scattered among them were half a dozen envelopes. By each piece of evidence was a numbered cone. Anlon turned away. Inside, he felt the urge to barf.

  Emerson drew Anlon’s attention away from the grisly scene to look at the wall where the slugs had been found. Higher on the wall was the alarm keypad. “The bullets lodged here and here. We think Miss McCarver was either trying to get to the front door or to the alarm keypad.”

  Anlon looked at the keypad, then back at the packages. “What time did this happen, you think?”

  “Best we can narrow it, somewhere between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. yesterday,” Emerson said, following Anlon’s eyes to the packages. “Two of the packages on the floor were delivered yesterday morning, right around eleven, according to the UPS deliveryman.”