The Dig (The Blackwell Files Book 9)

by Steven F Freeman

  The enlarged photo provided a detailed look at Grey’s legs and feet.

  Bingo!

  With this confirmation, the curious result of Dr. Miller’s autopsy now made perfect sense. Time to bring the team back together.

  She punched in a number on her cellphone. “O’Neil?”

  “Yeah. Agent Blackwell?”

  “Yes. Look, I’ve had a break in the case. Can you and Silva fly back to Guadalajara tonight?”

  “Probably, but we haven’t located the undertaker’s spear yet. Are you sure you want us back tonight?”

  “Positive,” replied Mallory. “We’re going to have a team meeting in the morning that you won’t want to miss.”

  CHAPTER 44

  The next morning, Mallory and Alton pulled a few extra folding chairs over to the table fronting the altar in the Zapopan Basilica. Mallory took a seat. Rummaging through a satchel she had placed at her side, she pulled out a manila folder.

  Most of the NSA team had arrived and now filled half the chairs. Lieutenant Vasquez and Sergeant Pineda joined them at the table.

  Mallory had dropped hints to several of those close to the investigation that more information about the murders would come to light, hoping to induce them to join this morning’s gathering. The enticement had worked—at least partially. Restaurateur Julio Diaz and his son Marco sat on a nearby pew. Unfortunately, there was no way to persuade Magda Novinsky or Wendy Chan to join them, not while the auctioneers remained on their cruise.

  Rounding out the attendees were Cornick, Adriana Mura, Elias Tan, and the rest of the archeologists, who filled in around the table and front pew.

  Vasquez studied the crowd. “Gustavo Cruz isn’t here.”

  “Are you surprised?” asked Alton.

  “Not really. El Tiborón is too smart to come to a meeting like this voluntarily. What’s this all about, anyway?”

  “Mallory will explain in just a minute, if you’re okay with that.”

  Vasquez nodded. “Yes, she asked me last night if she could lead this morning’s discussion. I agreed.”

  O’Neil and Silva bustled in.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said O’Neil, chagrined yet nonetheless a bit giddy, looking like a schoolchild who had enjoyed his first recess in a long while.

  “No worries,” said Alton, playing it off. “We’re just getting started.”

  Silva leaned towards the Blackwells. “Sorry, but we never heard from Novinsky any more. And we never heard anything about the undertaker’s spear, either. I’m afraid the cruise is a dead end.”

  Mallory’s eyes gleamed. “Maybe not as dead as you think.” She turned to Vasquez. “Ready for me to start?”

  “The floor is yours,” replied the lieutenant with a nod.

  Mallory cleared her throat. Everyone fell silent except Tan and a junior archeologist, who continued to confer in whispers.

  “We’ve made some progress over the past twenty-four hours,” said Mallory. “Enough progress to bring everyone back together.

  “For those of you not on the investigatory team, let me share a little background. We divided into three sub-teams: one to investigate Gustavo’s Cruz’s activities, one to spend more time interviewing witnesses here in the Zapopan area, and one to look into the sale of illegal artifacts on a cruise that’s still underway in the Panama Canal.”

  A murmur rose from the ranks of the archeologists.

  Marco Diaz glanced at his father with a strained expression but said nothing.

  “The question we’ve asked ourselves the entire time is why these murders occurred,” continued Mallory. “In other words, who do we know that would have a vested interest in killing these people? These are the people we want to investigate. In fact, one such person is sitting here with us.”

  The sanctuary fell into utter silence.

  Mallory spoke in even tones. “Julio Diaz owns El Escondite, a popular restaurant. He told us himself he resented the presence of the American researchers. And he told us he wished Dr. Cornick had died instead of Dr. Salazar.”

  Cornick’s face blanched, and his eyes grew wide.

  Julio Diaz laughed, a sharp bark. “You accuse me? I just tell you the feelings of many people in this area. Saying this doesn’t make me a murderer any more than any of the customers who stay away now. And like you say, I liked Dr. Salazar. He was a good man and good for my restaurant. Why would I kill him?”

  “Indeed,” said Mallory. “I agree. You have no motive to kill him. Perhaps you’d like to see Eden Grey, a U.S. archeologist, gone. But not Salazar. That’s why we took your name off the list of suspects.”

  Marco Diaz jumped to his feet. “Why don’t you just say it?”

  “Hijo—” began Julio, reached for his son’s forearm.

  Marco struggled away from his father’s grasp and shouted towards Mallory. “You think I killed Eden, don’t you?”

  Mallory watched the man for a handful of seconds before replying. “For a while I wondered, yes. Your initial statement to the police was nothing but lies. You tried to cover up the fact that you and Eden were in a serious relationship.”

  “Because I knew the police wouldn’t believe me when I said I had nothing to do with her murder.”

  “Exactly,” said Mallory. “Look, I don’t agree with your decision to give a false statement, but I do understand it. For a while, I wondered if Dr. Salazar killed Eden, and you murdered him out of revenge. But I have other evidence that shows me this isn’t the case. In fact, if it’s any comfort, I can tell you that the truthful statements you gave to me provided information crucial to discovering the real criminals involved in this case.”

  CHAPTER 45

  “What?” said Marco, stunned. “You know it wasn’t me?” Lowering himself to the pew, he cradled his head in his hands and wept—perhaps for himself, perhaps for Eden, perhaps both.

  “Yes, we know you weren’t involved,” replied Mallory.

  “I was going to propose to her that night.”

  Mallory swallowed. “I’m sorry for your loss.” She cleared her throat. “Our investigation uncovered information that pointed us in a different direction. These murders were definitely related. And they revolved around the illegal sale of artifacts.”

  “How do you know?” asked Elias Tan from the first pew.

  “Good question. Let’s follow the trail backwards.”

  “Backwards?”

  “From the final sale to an end customer—in this case O’Neil and Silva—back to the point of origin.”

  Another murmur arose from the assemblage. Until now, no one outside the NSA team had known the agents’ undercover mission.

  Vasquez leaned over to Alton and whispered. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

  “Sorry,” replied Alton, “but you said yourself the police department has leaks to the Sinaloa cartel. We couldn’t risk word getting out about their mission.”

  Mallory opted to continue. “Yes, Agents O’Neil and Silva sailed on the Midnight Sun out of Miami, posing as well-to-do buyers of antiquities. Their mission was to gather proof of the illegal sale of black-market artifacts.”

  “So,” said Elias Tan. “Did they?”

  “Yes, and for a while, we wondered if you were a part of it.”

  “Me?” squeaked Tan.

  “Yes, we traced back connections between you and Wendy Chan, the lead auctioneer on the cruise. You’ve done business with her before. It seemed an odd coincidence that you happen to be here while she’s selling artifacts south of here.”

  “Yeah, I’ve sold to her before, but there was never anything illegal about it.”

  “True—from your point of view. I did some checking, and everything you sold to her was purchased in a legit, registered sale.”

  “Wait,” said David, “I thought you said that Chan was using a holding company to hide her identity.”

  “Correct,” said Mallory. “I suspect she’s doing that to hide the transactions from her federal income taxes. I’
ve turned her name in to the IRS. They’ll be following up on that. But as far as Tan is concerned, he’s in the clear.

  “Let’s go back to the cruise. O’Neil and Silva did find proof of illegal artifact sales. They purchased two black-market artifacts themselves. Wendy Chan may have been trying to skip out on her taxes, but as far as we know, she didn’t deal in stolen merchandise. The same can’t be said of Magda Novinsky, Chan’s assistant. Novinsky was heavily involved with the effort to fence stolen artifacts on the cruise. She probably led those activities, from what we can tell.

  “To sell artifacts, there has to be a supplier. So the next question, of course, is who supplied Novinsky with her stolen merchandise?”

  The eyes of every participant riveted on Mallory’s face, waiting on her next words.

  “We don’t know all her suppliers, but we know for sure Gustave Cruz—el tiburón—was involved. We found a partial fingerprint of his on a ceremonial knife O’Neil and Silva bought from Novinsky during the cruise—a knife sourced from this very site.”

  “But how the dickens did this Novinsky woman get ahold of the knife in the first place?” said an exasperated Cornick. “We inventory everything we unearth.”

  “Once you inventory an artifact,” said Mallory, “what happens then?”

  “It’s locked away in an on-site storage cabinet until we move it to the University of Guadalajara.”

  “And how often is that?” asked Mallory.

  “About once a month,” said Cornick. “Sometimes every six weeks if we’re busy.”

  “Plenty of time for an insider to pick the lock and take a sample.”

  “But our records—” began Cornick.

  “Could be altered by someone who knew where to look,” finished Mallory. “Believe me, I’ve seen it all in my FBI job.”

  She turned to face the general assemblage. “So back to Cruz. As a member of the Sinaloa cartel, he probably figured he was under surveillance most of the time. So selling stolen goods without being spotted was problematic. Then he had an epiphany: he had a history of underwater caving in the cenotes. He could take stolen antiquities in a watertight case, disguised as scuba gear, and drop them off for pickup by his buyer.

  “And that’s exactly what he did. Alton and Lieutenant Vasquez found an air chamber in the LabnaHa cenote. Cruz used this spot to transfer O’Neil and Silva’s knife, and probably a lot of other stolen artifacts, to a go-between—someone who sold to Novinsky.”

  “How do you know this?” asked Cornick.

  “Alton found a hand-drawn map with a few sentences scribbled on it. The handwriting matches known samples of Cruz’s. There’s no question he drew the map, which in turn shows the underground tunnels he used to move the artifacts he sourced from the downtown cathedral to his warehouse using the underground tunnels. Cruz knew he was at risk of being discovered. That’s why he warned off Alton and Lieutenant Vasquez. And it was probably one of his men who took a shot at them outside Veronica Garcia’s house the other day.”

  “So it was Cruz,” murmured Tan. “But why did he kill Eden and Dr. Salazar? Did they find out about his side business in stolen artifacts?”

  “Cruz certainly threatened people, but that doesn’t mean he killed either archeologist. He told Alton and Lieutenant Vasquez he wasn’t involved, that he didn’t want the kind of heat a joint Mexican/U.S. investigation would bring.”

  Vasquez raised a cynical eyebrow. “And you believe him?”

  “In this case, yes.”

  “Cruz does a lot of things that bring him attention,” said the lieutenant. “It hasn’t seemed to slow him down in the past.”

  “True,” said Mallory. “But in this case, we know who really did kill Grey and Salazar. And it wasn’t him.”

  CHAPTER 46

  “Well, who?” demanded Vasquez.

  “Bear with me just another minute,” said Mallory. “I have to fill in a few more background details or my evidence won’t make sense.

  “Let’s think about the trail we’ve established so far. Magna Novinsky bought from Cruz’s go-between—whoever that is. But who sold the artifacts to Cruz? Like we discussed a minute ago, it had to be an inside job, by someone who knew how to modify the inventory records.”

  “But who?” asked Cornick. “You already said Elias didn’t do it.” He turned to his assistant and added, “Not that I thought you did, my lad.”

  “Ask yourself…” said Mallory, “Who knows the process inside and out? Who might even be able to sneak an artifact or two out without logging them in the first place?” Mallory cast a glance at the archeologists.

  Adriana Mura couldn’t meet Mallory’s gaze. The graduate student had a nervous, distracted air.

  “We suspected you, Ms. Mura,” said Mallory.

  “Me? Why?”

  “You’re responsible for the downtown site. All the workers give you their artifacts, and you log them in. You’d be in the perfect position to skim some off the top. And most importantly, you were making secret visits to this site without telling anyone. That kind of clandestine behavior is usually a bad sign.”

  Mura froze, her eyes taking on a deer-in-headlights quality.

  “You loved Dr. Salazar, didn’t you?” asked Mallory.

  Mura remained silent as a pair of tears tracked down her cheeks and silent sobs wracked her frame.

  “Pineda checked your cellphone records,” continued Mallory. “He saw the messages you sent home, about having a crush on someone you worked with.”

  Mura sniffed and wiped her nose. “Maybe I did love him. So why would I kill him? Or Eden Grey?”

  “My thinking exactly. The insider didn’t have to be an archeologist at all.” She turned to Sergeant Pineda. “Anyone in authority would have access to the site—and its artifacts.”

  CHAPTER 47

  “You accuse me?” spat Pineda. “You puta—”

  Alton grasped the man in a chokehold from behind. The sergeant had been too distracted by Mallory to notice Alton rise from his seat.

  Alton tightened his grip. “You won’t address my wife that way again.”

  Pineda struggled, to no avail. “Take your hands off me or I’ll arrest you.”

  “You won’t be arresting anyone. Your partial fingerprint was on the first artifact O’Neil bought from Novinsky. How shitty a cop do you have to be to leave your fingerprint on stolen goods?”

  The policeman stopped struggling. His face went pale, stunned at the revelation.

  “So how’d you do it?” asked Mallory. “Did you bribe Cornick’s guards? Or did you threaten them if they didn’t cooperate?”

  “Okay, yes,” he said, looking defeated. “I promised to split the money with the guards for anything they could get for me. And I showed them how to update the log. Is simple. But I didn’t kill anyone. I swear.”

  A mixture of anger and betrayal heated to a boil in the stare Vasquez trained on her subordinate.

  Cornick shook his head in bewilderment. “So Pineda sold to Cruz…who then sold to Novinsky?”

  “Yes,” said Mallory. “The illegal artifacts chain is nearly complete.”

  “Nearly?” asked Vasquez. “What’s left?”

  “Pineda is guilty of being a thief—not to mention a grade A pervert. But he didn’t steal the undertaker’s spear.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Mallory smiled. “We’ve wondered if the murder victims were killed because they knew who stole the spear. It turns out we were close. They were killed because they knew who didn’t steal it.”

  CHAPTER 48

  “What do you mean?” asked Vasquez, who had already moved to handcuff her subordinate.

  “What if Pineda is telling the truth?” asked Mallory. “What if he didn’t kill anyone?”

  “Then we’d still be looking for the killer, of course.”

  “Right. So let’s think about that. In the last few minutes, we’ve discussed people who might have a reason to kill one or two of the victims, but
who would have a motive to kill all three?”

  “Three?” said Vasquez. “But—”

  Mallory cut her off with a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

  “Yes, three,” continued Mallory. “The lack of one person with a clear motive to kill all three was one reason we wondered early on if they weren’t connected. Perhaps Eden’s was a crime of passion and the others crimes of greed. But like I mentioned earlier, there is a connecting thread, and it’s related to the artifact black market—just not in the way we expected.”

  Vasquez shook her head. “Explain.”

  Tan and Mura leaned in closer to take in Mallory’s every word. In the silence, the echo of a reparation worker’s shout reverberated throughout the sanctuary.

  Mallory turned to Marco. “You gave me a clue, but neither of us knew it at the time.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the still-distraught young man.

  “When you told me the real events of the night Eden died, you said she went back to her place to change out of her work clothes. She was going to meet you at El Cisne for dinner, right?”

  “That’s right. At seven o’clock.”

  “And that restaurant is pretty formal?” asked Mallory.

  “Yes, like I told you before.”

  “And Eden knew that it would be a special dinner?”

  “Yes.” Marco lowered his head and teared up again.

  “But at the beginning of this investigation, Dr. Cornick told us he saw Eden following her normal routine that night, which included changing into her usual work clothes before she left. Why would she do that if she was going to change again?”

  Marco shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Mallory’s eyes bore down on Cornick. “Because she didn’t change before she left.”

  Cornick cocked his head. “But I saw her leave. She had on the same kind of clothes she always changed into after work.”

  “Yes, that’s what you said before,” replied Mallory. “But I noticed an interesting detail in a couple of photos. The first photo we saw of Eden was taken out in front of this basilica. She was on a pile of rubble wearing her work boots.” She withdrew a photo from a manila folder in front of her and passed it to Vasquez. “Notice the shoelaces. On both shoes, they’re tied with the ‘over’ string coming from the right, the way most people tie their shoes.” Mallory removed another photo from her folder and slid it to the lieutenant. “Here’s one of the crime scene photos. Notice how the shoes are tied? The ‘over’ string is coming from the left. How can this be? I mean, who suddenly changes the way they tie their shoes? Nobody. But you know what can cause this? If someone dressed Eden in her shoes and tied the laces themselves, facing her, the knot looks just like is does in this second photo.”