The Dig (The Blackwell Files Book 9)

by Steven F Freeman

  “So Eden was already dead when these shoes were put on?” asked Vasquez.

  “Yes.”

  “But Dr. Cornick said she had already changed into her shoes when she left—the running shoes she’s wearing in the crime-scene photo.”

  “This proves this boyfriend of hers, this Marco Diaz, killed her in the apartment,” said Cornick. “And it explains why there was no sign of forced entry.”

  “But Marco said she was going to dress up for their anniversary dinner,” said Mallory. “Why would he tell that particular story if he had dressed her in casual clothes himself? Wouldn’t he tell a story consistent with the clothes he dressed her in?”

  Mallory eyed Vasquez while continuing. “Dr. Cornick had no idea Eden had special plans for that evening. He figured if he claimed she changed per her usual routine, everyone would believe him—especially since Eden was found wearing those usual clothes.

  “But she wasn’t wearing those clothes when she left work. The shoelaces prove it.”

  “Then what really happened?” asked Vasquez.

  “Dr. Cornick followed Eden to her apartment that night. Of course, there was no sign of forced entry. She would let him right in. She put up a fight, but the first blow crushed her skull. After he finished her off, he trashed the place to make it look like there had been a fight. Then he dressed her in her usual post-work clothes.”

  Cornick snorted. “I just randomly decided to change her clothes after killing her? Makes perfect sense.”

  “Alton noticed scratches on your hands the day we met you,” said Mallory. “He chalked it up to your job, but my guess is Eden scratched you trying to defend herself, and some of your blood got on her clothes. You’re smart enough to know that blood could provide a DNA match back to you. Then you had a brilliant idea. Why not dress Eden in the clothes she usually changed into at work? You could tell people she followed her normal routine, and no one would guess she’d been wearing different clothes during the attack. Her outfit would have been in the gym bag she always carried.

  “You were lucky in one respect. The medical examiner told me Eden had soil on her shoes from the work site. Even if you had left some of that soil behind, you wouldn’t need to worry since you and Eden worked the same dig.”

  Cornick cocked his head, looking more puzzled than anything else. “Agent Blackwell, your deductive powers are impressive, but they’ve gone off the rails in this instance. Why would I want to kill a valued member of my staff—Eden or Dr. Miller? And you said the same person killed Dr. Salazar, too, right? I certainly didn’t want to see him dead. Without his connections with the Mexican government, our project has struggled to survive.”

  “Which is exactly what you wanted,” replied Mallory.

  CHAPTER 49

  “But that’s…crazy,” protested Cornick. He swept his hands in an arc, taking in the sanctuary. “This site is the culmination of my life’s work, sure to be my crowning achievement. Why would I want to see this dig destroyed?”

  “That’s exactly the question I asked myself. And frankly, it’s why it took so long to get to the bottom of all this.”

  Cornick shook his head. “Agent Blackwell, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’re way off track.”

  “I’m not, and I can tell you exactly what happened.”

  If the proverbial pin had dropped, all present would have been sure to hear it.

  Mallory turned from Cornick to face the rest of the gathering. “Imagine you’re a prominent archeologist. You’re working in the tunnels at downtown Guadalajara. It’s interesting work, but by Cornick’s own admission, nothing stupendous.

  “Then an earthquake reveals tunnels no one knew existed. It must have felt like Aladdin’s cave opening up. You rush to the new site, anxious to see what treasures you’ll find. It doesn’t take long to learn that the contents of this site exceed that of the downtown one.

  “As good as it is, though, it doesn’t have everything you could have hoped for—the legendary undertaker’s spear, for instance.”

  “But—” began Vasquez.

  Mallory held up a palm. “And then, somewhere during those first few days, you have an idea. What if, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, you did find the undertaker’s spear? And what if that spear were to suddenly disappear due to an apparent robbery? Cornick’s team told us the first day of our investigation how day-to-day operating costs, including salaries, are limited. Archeologists don’t enter their field for the money. And Cornick told us himself the spear would be priceless. To the right buyer of stolen antiquities, the spear could be worth seven or even eight figures.

  “But you had a problem. During those first few days, a few of your colleagues saw the statue of Mictlantecuhtli in the temple before you covered it up. They knew it never held the spear. What to do?” Mallory faced Cornick with a grim expression. “So you did the only thing you could do. You finished them off, one by one. Only after they all died—and there was no one left to contradict your lie—did you tell the world that you’d found the undertaker’s spear. And you didn’t need to stop there. There was no one else who could refute the claim that the site wasn’t loaded with priceless artifacts you’d already ‘found,’ which you could sell for millions more.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” sputtered Cornick. “If I’d done everything you say, why in the world would I have requested your team to come down here?”

  “To sell the story that someone else perpetrated these crimes. No one would suspect the esteemed scientist, the head of the mission, for masterminding such a plot, especially after he asks for more investigators. It was a nearly perfect cover. And it sure fooled us for a while.”

  “You have an admirable imagination, Agent Blackwell,” said Cornick, “but that’s really all it is. Give me a few hours, and I can spin a fantastic yarn to explain all these events, too.” He sat back in his chair. “The problem is that our stories need to be backed up with proof. And you don’t have any.”

  Mallory smiled. “But I do. No smoking gun, I admit, but the accumulation of several smaller pieces of evidence that together form a complete picture.”

  Cornick sneered. “Such as?”

  “You were anxious to tell us how cruises are a key marketplace in the black market for stolen goods.”

  The archeologist shrugged. “Of course. That’s a true statement. How does that reflect poorly on me?”

  “Requesting American investigators helped sell your story, but you probably figured the U.S. wouldn’t actually send anyone. You must have been nervous when we arrived. Once we started discussing the black market, you made a point to emphasize the importance of legitimate auctions and cruises to the sale of stolen goods.”

  “So you’re claiming I’m the person who sold the artifacts to Cruz?” asked Cornick.

  “One of the people. Pineda didn’t know it, but he was the small fish. The really valuable artifacts came from you.”

  “If I were selling this stuff, why would I direct you right to one of my buyer’s customers, someone you could use to presumably trace the artifacts back to me?”

  “To get us out of Guadalajara, where the most damaging evidence exists. You figured we’d all leave. You must have been disappointed when most of us stayed.”

  Cornick shrugged. “Again, speculation. I made a statement of fact about the importance of cruises and legitimate auctions to artifact black markets. O’Neil and Silva’s mission proved my statement was correct. That doesn’t make me some kind of master criminal.”

  “By itself it wouldn’t,” replied Mallory, “but it explains why Novinsky didn’t hesitate to drop an ‘artifact’ over the ship’s railing. O’Neil and Silva said she didn’t seem too concerned about losing the stolen pendant. Now we know why. She was in on your scheme and knew the pendant was a fake. You could manufacture a new one in a few days. Besides, the money she made from something that small was peanuts. Her job on that cruise was building excitement for the really big items that would be put on
the black market in the next few months—with the ultimate prize being the undertaker’s spear. She told O’Neil and Silva big items were on the way.”

  “I’ve never met this Novinsky woman.”

  “I wonder…if Novinsky is given the option of a reduced sentence on charges of international racketeering, will she confirm she’s never met you? Or will she admit that she’s been working with you to prime the market for a big score?”

  “Wild fantasy,” said Cornick. “Talk to her all you want.”

  “We will,” said Mallory. “In the meantime, there’s the statement you made about Gustavo Cruz’s threats to Dr. Miller.”

  “What about them?” asked Cornick, his patience beginning to wear thin.

  “You took advantage of the fact that Cruz issued a mild threat when Dr. Miller went to borrow a wheelbarrow,” said Mallory. “You must have regarded Miller’s death as extreme luck on your part. It gave you the chance to paint Cruz as the murderer.”

  “I only repeated what Harry told me,” protested Cornick.

  “Wrong,” said Mallory. “Once you learned of his death, you made up a story about another, more-serious threat. You said Cruz’s thugs threatened to kill anyone who approached their property. But Cruz never said this. It was a story you made up after discovering Dr. Miller’s body in the tunnel underneath the downtown basilica. You figured, like the rest of us, that Cruz had killed Miller. A second threat would lend credibility to the story that Cruz is behind the illegal artifact sales. But it turns out Miller died of a heart attack. No one killed him. And lying about Cruz’s statements to make him look guilty only makes sense if you’re trying to cover up your own secrets.”

  Cornick began a slow clap and continued for a good half minute. “Congratulations, Agent Blackwell. You win the fiction prize for the year. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.” He rose from his chair.

  “I’d wait if I were you,” said Mallory. “I’ve saved the best for last.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Cornick rolled his eyes. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  “I’m going to recommend to Lieutenant Vasquez that she send a team to your apartment. I’m betting we’ll find the materials used in aging techniques to create ‘artifacts’ that weren’t really in your tunnels. We might even find a few fake artifacts, all set to be passed along to Cruz and then Novinsky.”

  “Anything in my place is a legitimate artifact I’ve brought home for more study.”

  “Maybe,” said Mallory. “Or maybe you decided the safest way to kick off your new black-market career would be selling legitimate items of lesser value. What better way to build credibility with your customers than selling them the real deal at first?”

  “Again,” Cornick snarled, “you have no proof.”

  “Well, we have these two examples,” said Mallory, removing the Mayahuel statue and ceremonial knife O’Neil and Silva had purchased on their cruise from the satchel at her side. “We checked the inventory logs at both digs. Neither artifact is listed. Yet they showed up for sale on the cruise.”

  “So?”

  “I’m betting we’ll find a bit of your genetic material pressed down into the pores of these keepsakes.”

  Cornick started.

  “That’s right,” said Mallory. She placed the antiquities on the table. “We only need trace amounts these days. It doesn’t matter whether these two artifacts are fakes or genuine. According to your logs, they don’t exist. But if we find your DNA on them, it proves the whole chain of events the way I’ve described it.”

  Cornick sat up as if preparing to speak but checked himself. He raised an elbow to the table and rested his head in his palm, a look of distress passing across his features.

  He roused himself. “Dammit! I was this close,” he said, holding his thumb and index finger millimeters apart. “I still don’t understand how…”

  Eyes blazing, Marco Diaz jumped from his seat. “You killed Eden…for fucking money?”

  Cornick cast his eyes to the ground and didn’t answer.

  “I kill you, you fat pig!” screamed Marco. Taking a single, long stride to the table, he snatched up the ceremonial knife and lunged forward, burying the rusty blade to the hilt in Cornick’s throat.

  A fountain of blood erupted from the wound. Everyone at the table had jumped to prevent the tragedy, but the speed and ferocity of Marco’s unexpected attack had caught them all off guard.

  The archeologist collapsed to the floor. His body jerked with a terrific spasm, then fell limp.

  David reached Marco and wrapped him in a bear hug from behind. “Easy there.”

  Still clutching the knife, the younger Diaz offered no resistance as David pulled him away. Marco dropped the blade to the floor with a clatter. Twisting in David’s grasp, he turned and spat on Cornick’s still form. “You won’t be killing anyone else.”

  As David pulled him away, Marco broke down sobbing. “Eden, mi amor…”

  CHAPTER 51

  That afternoon, Alton, Mallory, and the rest of the NSA team joined Lieutenant Vasquez around a wrought-iron table in the plaza fronting the downtown cathedral, far away from the morning’s violent event. The cascading waters of a nearby fountain took the edge off the perpetual roar of traffic.

  The team members had ordered an assortment of coffee beverages that would have strained the capacity of the most talented barista—all but Alton, that is. He didn’t normally drink his coffee black, but today it felt like the right choice, given Cornick’s untimely death and this morning’s incarceration of the distraught Marco Diaz.

  “So has your team reported back from Cornick’s apartment yet?” Alton asked Vasquez.

  “Yes. In fact, they finished the initial exam there a couple of hours ago.”

  “And…?”

  “They found the supplies for aging modern items to make them look ancient, just like your wife said,” replied Vasquez, stirring her coffee as a breeze pushed a strand of hair in her face. “They didn’t find any fake artifacts there, so they moved on to the underground temple, the one Cornick showed you the first day. Guess what they found there?”

  Alton grinned. “From your expression, I’d say something good.”

  “Yes. You remember in the middle of the temple was a cabinet that holds the tools—shovels and things like that? Well, the cabinet had a false wall in the back. Behind it was a spear. Parts of the spear look old, but other parts look brand new.”

  Alton took a sip of his coffee. “Cornick must have been in the middle of his artificial aging process. He probably didn’t plan on putting the spear on the market for a few months, and he’d certainly want to take his time getting the aging process perfect or the eventual buyer would demand their money back.”

  “That is what I am thinking, too.”

  David nudged Alton in the ribs. “Your wife upstaged you this morning, Al.”

  Alton smiled. “No one’s upstaging anyone else. We’re a team. Besides, there’s no question she was the best person to outline the case against Cornick.”

  “Why?”

  “You and I both know that we’re more likely to get suspects to crack if we keep constant pressure on them. Mallory pieced together Cornick’s plan in the first place. She was the best person to respond to each of his objections.”

  “True. And you can’t argue with success.” David raised his mug of steaming coffee and turned to Mallory with a smile tempered by the day’s somber events. “Nicely done.”

  CHAPTER 52

  NSA Supervisory Agent Ernesto Vega drummed his fingers on the sleek finish of the conference-room table. “So let me get this straight? Cornick took advantage of the cave-in by creating ‘artifacts’ that supposedly came from it?”

  “Yep,” replied Mallory. “Once he dreamed up this plot, he had to eliminate anyone who could dispute the fact that the ‘valuable’ artifacts weren’t discovered in the Zapopan Basilica’s underground temple. Cornick himself said his colleagues were on the up-and-up.
He must’ve felt they’d never participate in the scam. He probably would have killed Dr. Miller if he hadn’t died of natural causes first.”

  “But I thought Cornick was a respected archeologist. How did he get mixed up in this sort of thing?”

  Mallory pursed her lips. “The complete picture died with him. But we can piece together most of the details.” She crossed one leg over the other. “At the end of the day, it was all about money.”

  “I thought you checked out the financial situation of everyone on the team,” said Vega.

  “I did. Cornick didn’t have much debt. But it turns out he didn’t have much in the way of assets, either. Imagine you’re him. You’ve had a distinguished career. You’re at the top of your game. But what do you have to show for it? Cornick told me himself he’d be retiring once the Guadalajara dig was over. It’s not like he’d have much time to save more.”

  “And the day I met Cornick,” added Alton, “he admitted that archeologists don’t make much money.”

  “Exactly,” said Mallory. “Once he retired, he’d be living on a professor’s pension. Maybe he wasn’t happy about that, but what choice did he have? But then…a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented itself, the chance to make more money than he’d earned over his entire career.”