Robbed of Soul: Legends of Treasure Book 1

by Lois D. Brown

  “That’s horrid.”

  “Yeah, the Aztecs weren’t big into respecting life.”

  Maria had been so fixed on Rod’s story, she hadn’t realized her hand now rested on his leg, mainly because they were so close there was nowhere else to put it.

  “Anyway, my uncle decided he wanted to send scuba divers down to see what they could find at the bottom of the lake. I was scuba certified and begged him to let me go.”

  Maria imagined what Rod would have looked like in high school, smooth skin and boyish.

  “He finally gave in. There were five professional scuba divers and me. The first dive was a wash. There was equipment failure after equipment failure. Lights didn’t work. Air tanks had problems. The whole nine yards.”

  Maria felt Rod’s leg begin to tap up and down nervously.

  “We tried a second dive. This time we were able to get a ways down. We got deep enough into the water that we saw a tunnel in the cliff wall. It was at least six feet in diameter. The moment I entered, the water temperature turned frigid. Visibility all but disappeared. Our high-powered floodlights didn’t work for more than an inch or two. I didn’t get very far in the tunnel when a heavy draft pulled me downward. The water was so … I don’t know what to call it. Thick? Anyhow, I couldn’t see any of the other divers. We’d all gotten separated, and I was freezing.”

  Maria nodded, urging him to continue.

  “When I stopped to get my bearings, my line went limp. That totally freaked me out. I tried to backtrack but had no idea which direction I was headed. That’s when I saw him.”

  “Saw who?” Maria asked, but she already knew the answer.

  “A ghost. His whole body shimmered in the black water. He wore nothing but a colorful arm band. His bloated, lifeless body hung in the water. Long, coal-black hair surrounded his head, hiding his facial features.”

  Maria swallowed loudly.

  “It scared me so badly … I started to cry,” continued Rod. “I don’t tell that part to many people. I was sixteen and invincible at the time.”

  Rod’s sixteen-year-old personality sounded a lot like Maria’s thirty-year-old self. Logic tried to tell Maria that all people would do the same when faced with their greatest fear.

  “The ghost’s bare feet started to twitch, kick, and then begin paddling. Same with his arms. The water-logged figure clawed at the space in front of me.”

  The nervous twitch in Rod’s leg had become a robust bounce.

  “His hand caught my mouthpiece and ripped it out. I felt the ghost’s fingers on my face. They were pure ice. Maria, I knew I was going to die. Do you know what that feels like?”

  Rod exhaled in short bursts. Maria’s body was also shaking, despite the blanket and Rod’s body next to hers. “Yes,” she said, “I know what that feels like.”

  Her answer seemed to calm Rod some. It was true that misery loved company. “I remember thrashing around and breathing in water. It filled my lungs. I was choking on lake water forty feet under. And then I blacked out. The next thing I knew I was being pulled out. Sometimes I still can’t believe it myself. I should be dead.”

  “I also know what that feels like,” said Maria. She stared into the sky with her own haunting memories.

  As if he’d just bench pressed his personal best, Rod rotated his shoulders back and forth and stretched his neck side to side, shaking off his dark mood. “Everyone on the dive lived, but just barely. One man had deep bruises around his neck where he’d been choked. Someone else had been beaten in the head with a hard object. I don’t remember all the details, but it was awful. No one in the group would dive again. The story got around and people asked me a lot of questions. Most of them thought I was a teenager making it up. But I know I saw what I saw. I didn’t care if people told me I was crazy.”

  There was a long pause and then Rod added, “Then again, that might have had something to do with the reason behind the plan for mini-explosives graduation night.”

  Maria burst out laughing. She understood that feeling all too well. The desire to blow up everything around her. Of course, the one difference between her and Rod was that she really was crazy.

  “When I saw you freeze up in the cave like you did,” said Rod, “it reminded me of how I felt after the dive. I was sure you must have seen something. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot at the Thatcher’s house when I asked if you’d ever seen a ghost.”

  He stopped talking a minute, taking a moment to think. At last he said, “I guess I wanted to know if you’d believe my story. I’ve had a lot of people tell me I’m nuts. I hoped you wouldn’t.”

  It was Maria’s turn. If Rod had the guts to tell her what he had, she could have the guts to tell him. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I did see a ghost in the cave. He looked a lot like yours. He tried to communicate with me.”

  “I knew it.” Relief spread over his face and his leg stopped shaking. “Did you see him just the once?”

  “Uh, no. I’ve seen him one other time, actually. At my house.” Being honest about this fact felt good, but of course she’d never tell him she’d seen hundreds of ghosts over the last year. That was taking the whole open Maria a bit too far.

  Rod leaned down again, his face burrowing into her thick hair. Maria heard him quietly inhale. The move was more sudden than she’d expected. She’d had no time to resist, react, or squirm away. And she didn’t want to anyway. Her whole body was alive. Her breath quickened. Her heart beat faster. Being that close to him was waking up a part of her she’d pushed away for so long.

  Rod murmured into the top of her head, so that his words seemed to seep into her. His warm breath shot heat all the way down her body. “Thanks for believing me.”

  Maria didn’t want to budge one inch. She wanted to stay like that forever.

  Rod, however, did move. He bent his head back up. “It’s strange, but I go back to Three Lakes every year since it happened. I don’t swim in the water, but I get right next to it. It keeps me sane. I think it’s a whole ‘face-your-fear’ kind of exercise for me. In fact, I thought I’d go again this weekend.”

  A pause.

  “Do you want to come?” he asked.

  Maria had no burning desire herself to return to the place of a near-death experience. She would never go back to Tehran. Not if someone paid her a million dollars to do it. But to go to Three Lakes with Rod? That she could handle.

  The thought of Tehran shot an image of one of the other captured CIA agent’s face into her thoughts. The face was contorted. Frightened. Riddled with pain. Maria’s heart that had been racing before with the nearness of Rod now stopped short. She couldn’t let herself go there. Not now. Not when she was feeling so … human.

  “So, how about it? Will you come with me?” Rod questioned. “I’ll call my uncle and make arrangements for Saturday. He’s good about letting me visit.” Rod’s mouth seemed to be inching closer to hers each time he spoke. The motion was magnetic. She found herself moving her lips toward his as well.

  “I—” Maria’s cell phone rang. She flinched. Who could be calling her at this time of night? As police chief, calls after midnight were never good.

  She pulled out her phone. The incoming phone number wasn’t familiar. Maybe it was a mistake and she should ignore it. As her head was bent down looking at the screen, Rod’s lips brushed against her cheek, almost stopping her lungs from working.

  “Don’t answer it,” he mumbled.

  But she had to. It was her job. That’s what she did. She answered calls in the middle of the night. She stopped domestic violence. She confiscated drugs. She investigated murders. And, not to be forgotten, she rescued cats from trees.

  “Hello?”

  “Chief Branson?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Donald Trullet from Utah’s Attorney General’s office. I was told to notify you that Senator Cal Emerson was taken into custody earlier tonight on charges of drug trafficking, possession of counterfeit money, and resisting
arrest. We need you here first thing in the morning to give us your affidavit on the materials you’ve found while investigating Mayor Hayward’s death. We haven’t found anything directly connecting the senator to the murder, but we do know Mayor Hayward was blackmailing the senator. He had been for a while.”

  Stunned, Maria took a second to ingest the news. Senator Emerson was arrested. Mayor Hayward had been blackmailing him, just as she’d suspected. The attorney general must have some pretty solid evidence to have taken him into custody like that. She must have scared the senator enough that he’d gotten nervous and slipped up.

  The sense of accomplishment she craved from police work filled her chest. She scooted away from Rod and leaned forward, giving him a clear sign old Maria was back.

  “I’m about five hours away. What time do you want me there for the affidavit?”

  “I know it’s short notice, but could you be here at 8 a.m.? The attorney general wanted to personally thank you, and he’s going to be tied up the entire rest of the day.”

  “I can do 8 a.m. Thanks for calling.” Maria hung up. She turned to Rod.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I have to go. It’s work.”

  Rod casually nodded. “I get it. I’d do the same.”

  “But,” Maria said, “plan on me for Three Lakes on Saturday. It’s a date.”

  Six miles north of Kanab on Highway 89 … [there is] an Aztec treasure sign, a circle with an arrow pointing down, carved in the rock eight feet above the water level on the wall above the lakes. The site fits the criteria for an Aztec treasure hiding technique, called a “water trap.”

  —Southern Utah News, June 27, 1990.

  Chapter 22

  EXHAUSTED, MARIA PARKED HER car under the carport and dragged herself inside her Kanab condo that still didn’t feel quite like home. She hadn’t had a single break since leaving Rod’s house at 2 a.m. that morning. She had driven five hours, had a three-hour meeting with the attorney general’s office, and then driven another five hours back to Kanab. In exactly thirty minutes she was supposed to meet Pete at the coroner’s office in the hospital. But first, she had to do something with her disheveled clothing and car-head hair.

  Maria kicked off her shoes and plopped her tired body onto her sofa. The light on her answering machine blinked. It couldn’t be someone she knew well. The only reason she had a land line was to screen calls from people she didn’t want calling her cell. She pushed the playback button, closed her eyes, and rested her neck on the back of the couch.

  “Hi, Chief Branson. This is Sherrie Mercer. I missed you at the interview today. I was hoping to get your picture and finish up this human interest story. Please call me back so we can reschedule.”

  Maria felt little regret about missing the meeting with Sherrie. And, even better was that she had a legitimate excuse. Maybe the reporter would get the clue that Maria didn’t want a human interest story published about her.

  The answering machine still blinked with another message.

  “Maria, your mother and I were just checking in with you. Hoping your new job is working out. Things are good here. Lots of love.”

  A pang of guilt settled in Maria’s gut. It was horrible that she hadn’t given her parents her cell number, but it was what her therapist had recommended. Ever since coming home, her father had acted so disappointed in her. Monitoring her contact with him had helped lessen the “shame” she felt. Dr. Roberts had explained that her parents were mourning the loss of the daughter they once knew just as Maria was mourning the loss of her former self.

  Maria was damaged property. And that was just the way it was going to be.

  She rested her head a minute more and then knew if she didn’t stand up that very second she would crash and miss the visit to the coroner, which was the one thing she’d been waiting anxiously for all day. It could make or break this case.

  Maria ran through the details she had concluded on her drive home from the attorney general’s. Cal Emerson had a solid alibi for the day the mayor was killed. Besides, it was hard to believe the out-of-shape senator could have hiked to the cave in the first place, nor would Mayor Hayward have trusted him enough to go into a dark, cramped space with him. The two were associates but definitely not friends.

  The real question remained: did Cal Emerson hire someone to do the murder for him? He would have had to hire someone who knew the mayor well enough to coax him into a cave. And just who could that person be?

  Maria jumped off the soft cushions. It was that question and others she hoped to have answered after the visit to the coroner’s. She needed to be on her way.

  *

  “Follow me,” said the thin-boned Asian women behind the desk in the coroner’s office. On her white lab coat was a badge with the name Dr. Butler. She didn’t look intimidating, but Maria had heard that, in the medical examination room, the woman was tough. She knew her stuff.

  In the front office, an airy mountain scent from an aerosol can had greeted Maria’s nose. However, despite the Lysol-clean appearance of the examination room, the smell of decaying bodies hung in the air like smog in a polluted city. Dr. Butler pulled out a jar of Vicks vapor rub, dipped her finger into it, and smeared it under her nose.

  “Want some?” she asked.

  Pete and Maria both took her up on the offer.

  Next, Dr. Butler briskly strode to an oversized large metallic door, opening it with a key. A blast of cold air from the walk-in freezer made goose bumps spring up on Maria’s arms and neck.

  “He was already embalmed for the funeral,” said Dr. Butler, as she wheeled a gurney into the room, “but I like to keep bodies in the freezer anyway. I think it just makes them fresher, don’t you?”

  Pete murmured something about a freezer being for popsicles. Maria said nothing but focused on her abdominal breathing techniques to lower her anxiety levels that were shooting through the roof. She had thought they were going to just be looking at photographs. If she had known the actual body was going to be here, she would have come more mentally prepared.

  Dr. Butler pushed the body right next to Pete and Maria. “I was excited when Emily Hayward kindly agreed to let me have him back for one last examination before burying him. I wanted to show you both something.”

  Maria could think of about a million other things that would make her more excited than getting to examine a dead body one more time.

  “The good news is that the mayor didn’t suffer long. The bullet killed him quickly. Unfortunately, since there wasn’t much of a struggle, there was no foreign DNA present anywhere on his body or clothing. Forensics got back to me with their report earlier this afternoon. I know you were hoping for some definite evidence on the body itself, but I’m afraid I don’t have that to give you, Chief.”

  Maria didn’t try hiding her disappointment.

  “On the other hand,” continued Dr. Butler, “forensics did say there were multiple instances of foreign DNA on items in his vehicle, all from the same individual.”

  Maria’s eyebrows rose. She had a guess at whose DNA it might be.

  “DNA from hair samples were found on the front passenger seat as well as DNA saliva on the rim of an empty bottle of juice.” Dr. Butler fiddled with the corner of the white sheet that covered the mayor’s body.

  It made Maria even more nervous. “Any identification of the DNA?”

  “Not yet. We wanted to take some samples from any possible … what do you call them? ‘People of interest?’”

  Pulling out a sample bag full of Whitney’s hair, Maria said, “I already have this sample for you. How long do you think it would take to see if it’s a match to the foreign DNA in the vehicle?”

  Dr. Butler took the bag. “I’ll drive this over to the lab myself. I bet if I push them, they could have the results back by Monday. Quick enough?”

  “Perfect.”

  Pete looked at Maria inquisitively. “Whose hair is that?”

  Maria hadn’t had time to bring Pete up to speed with e
verything that was going on. While she’d been busy with the murder case, Pete had taken over the day-to-day police tasks that needed to be done. And he’d done a great job of it too. Beth had been right about him. He must have been feeling just a little intimidated by her at first.

  “I got the samples when I was having dinner with the Thatchers last night,” Maria said quietly enough so Dr. Butler didn’t hear. “They invited me and Rod Thorton to their home. I have some ‘iffy’ evidence that Whitney Thatcher may have something to do with the mayor’s death.”

  Pete’s mouth dropped open. Maria figured he was angry she hadn’t told him about Whitney sooner.

  “You had dinner with Rod Thorton?” Pete folded his arms across his chest.

  Maria might as well have slapped him. He looked so hurt.

  “Yes. It was a good opportunity to get a sample of Whitney’s hair.” Maria pointed to the sample bag to prove her point.

  “Was it like a date?” Pete planted his feet and stared at her.

  “I guess. No, not really. What’s the big deal?”

  Dr. Butler interrupted the conversation, thankfully. “I need to check on something in the other room. Before I go, however, I wanted to show you one interesting thing on the body. Go ahead and see if you can find it for yourself.” With that she pulled the sheet that was covering Mayor Hayward’s stiff, naked body and walked out of the room.

  Pete gagged.

  So did Maria, but for a different reason.

  She’d seen lots of bodies after an autopsy. However, she’d never seen a corpse on a gurney with its eyes open, waving to her like he was in the Rose Bowl parade.

  Her heart fell. The ghosts were back.

  Just like at the mayor’s viewing, Maria hadn’t had time to prepare emotionally. Her vision blurred, and her equilibrium stopped working. She felt as if she were walking on a tightrope and was about to fall to her death from one hundred feet in the air. She couldn’t force spit down her throat.