Murder at the Mayan Temple (A Starling and Swift Cozy Mystery Book One)

by M. J. Mandrake

  “Kitty!” Tavish’s voice was layered with relief. “Did the embassy send someone to you?”

  “Yes. Yes, he’s here. But Tavish, the hurricane…” She couldn’t ask.

  Chica sat up and pressed her head into Kitty’s leg, as if to ask what was going on.

  “I know.” His voice faded in and out with bursts of static. “We’re heading north within the hour. You know I would wait for you if I―” The line went silent for a moment and Kitty clutched the phone to her ear.

  “Tavish! Are you there?” She could hear a murmur, but wasn’t sure if it just more distortion. “Captain Edwards?”

  “Kitty, we’ve got people on it. Don’t worry. We’ll get everyone home safely.” He was speaking very clearly, hoping to get through the static. “Be careful. Remember to stick with the embassy people. They’re your best hope for―”

  And the line went dead.

  Kitty slowly put the phone back on the table. They were being left behind. Her home wasn’t far away, just a few hours by car, but being stranded in the middle of a murder investigation as a hurricane closed in was quite possibly the worst scenario she could have imagined.

  Chapter Six

  “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

  ― Charles Bukowski

  Kitty helped Liliana up the steps of the small bus. “Everything is going to get sorted out,” she reassured her. The young woman wiped her eyes and didn’t respond. Kitty didn’t blame her. The ship had left the port and all their belongings were headed to Miami without them. They were all stuck in Tulum for an indefinite period, instead of a quick twenty-four-hour jaunt. The little white van rocked in the wind, a sign that the hurricane wasn’t letting up anytime soon.

  She helped Liliana into a seat beside a silent and exhausted-looking Ron. Poor people. The ceremonial knife would be considered evidence for a very long time, even if it could be repaired. The meeting with the curator was delayed indefinitely. Ron hadn’t spoken since he’d seen Jace’s body. The shock of losing the knife, and then finding it in a murder victim had clearly been too much for him. He looked as if he’d lost hope, as if he was the one whose life was over. She reached over to pat him on the arm, but he didn’t turn away from the window. Kitty sighed. There was no way she could fix what had happened. Besides Mrs. Van Horn, Kitty felt the saddest for them.

  “Come on, Chica,” she said, and started down the aisle. A second later, she realized there was no other seat.

  “You can come with me,” a voice said behind her.

  Leander had followed her up the steps.

  “Oh. Well. Okay.” She tried not to answer too quickly. He probably thought she was one of those women that treated a cruise like a dating game.

  He gave quick instructions to the driver and they made their way toward an official-looking vehicle. He opened the back door for Chica, and put a towel on the seat. Before Kitty could call to her, Chica was already inside, shaking herself vigorously and settling onto the fluffy fabric.

  She slid into the leather seat and pushed back her dripping hood. The driver’s side door opened and Leander folded himself behind the wheel. The wind had whipped his hat from his head, and the rain made the contrast between his naturally dark hair and the shock of white much more pronounced.

  The small van pulled in front of them and Kitty could see Elaine waving to her from the back window. She waved back, but the van had already turned toward the main road. Peeking behind her, she could see through the grate of the divider. Chica met her eyes and grinned, huge tongue lolling out one side of her mouth.

  Her dog was clearly taken with the detective. Or maybe she knew he was their best chance of avoiding a long stint in a Mexican prison.

  “I get it,” she signed to her.

  He glanced over. “Does Chica know a lot of sign language?”

  “Not really.”

  “But you still―?”

  “People talk to their dogs all the time and I’m sure they don’t understand every word. Don’t you have a dog?” she asked. She was almost positive of his answer.

  “No.”

  “What?” She was a little louder than she’d meant to be.

  “Is that a crime?”

  “I just figured you for a dog person.”

  He turned and gave her a small smile. Kitty couldn’t decide if the half-smile was better or the cocked eyebrow was more effective at giving an impression of mysterious benevolence.

  “I did have a dog. He passed away last year at the grand old age of fifteen.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” She had lived through the loss of several dogs and it was heart-wrenching.

  “What was his name?”

  He took a moment to answer. “Alto.”

  High. That was a strange name for a dog. But she supposed that was the fun of naming a puppy. It didn’t have to apply for a job someday. The name didn’t need to look good on a college degree certificate. It just had to be right.

  “If only dogs lived as long as humans, my life would be perfect,” she said.

  He turned onto a small road leading out of town. The thick jungle seemed to be alive as it swayed in the wind. Large palm trees were bending and leaves littered the pavement.

  “Are you going to question the Browns next?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “They’re the obvious place to start because it was their knife. But I don’t think he could have done it.”

  “Why?”

  “He was so happy to be bringing it here to the museum. And last night when he brought the artifacts out to show everyone at the table, he was very clear that the knife couldn’t be used to kill anybody or it would break.” Kitty sighed. Ron had been so proud of being in possession of an unbroken item of that quality. “It was incredibly valuable because it was so unique and in one piece.”

  He took a moment to absorb that information. “Thank you. I appreciate the insight.”

  There was a pause. Kitty cleared her throat. “Thank you, again, for helping us get out of there. I was really afraid we were going to spend the night in a cell. Now we’ll be eating lunch in a place without locks on every door.”

  “It wasn’t safe for you all to stay in that building with the hurricane on the way. The embassy house is built to withstand tropical storms.”

  Kitty examined his profile and wondered if it was against the rules to comfort murder suspects. “You arranged for them to accept written statements for now. Now we can clean up and get some rest.”

  “You might also get together and make sure your stories are straight.”

  She grimaced. He had a point. “They never took our phones. Just told us not to talk to anybody.”

  He made a noise in the back of his throat. “I noticed.”

  Clearly police procedure wasn’t high on the list in Mexico.

  “Did it take you a long time to get to the station from where you live?”

  He stopped at a cross roads without signs, and looked into the driving rain. The windshield wipers were on high. A palm branch skidded across the road in front of them. “I was already in Tulum for another matter. I spent several hours at the crime scene.”

  “Oh.” Kitty felt a chill wash over her at the memory of the chamber. She shivered. He turned left, carefully avoiding a pothole, and turned up the heat.

  “Did you know him well?”

  She debated what to say. In one way, she knew Jace inside and out. He was brazen, fearless, and a completely untrustworthy human being. On the other hand, she didn’t really understand the man. What twenty-five-year-old beach bum would marry a ninety-year-old-millionaire deaf widow whose family clearly hated him the sight of him? She would think that was too much trouble, even for millions.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Did you like him?”

  “As a person? No.”

  He glanced at her. “In any other way?”

  Kitty was caught between laughing and feeling offended. “No, not
in any other way.”

  “Others in your group say that he paid attention to you.”

  “He― what?” Kitty waved a hand in the air, as if to dispel the idea. She could see how it would be presented: Jace, Kitty, and Jorge in a love triangle gone wrong. “Jace paid attention to anybody he thought could get him what he wanted.”

  “And what was that?”

  She was suddenly very tired. “I don’t know,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “Money, maybe. Women. Freedom to do what he wanted. I never really figured him out.”

  The sky was as dark as if the sun had just set. Kitty wondered how Mérida

  was going to fare. She made a mental note to call Nancy as soon as they made it to the house. She needed to check on her kitties, too. Rook and Raven turned skittish when the weather was bad and liked to hide up in the rafters of the old Colonial building.

  “Are you from around here?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “I mean your family. Where is your family from in Mexico?”

  “They’re not,” he said, not taking his eyes from the road.

  Kitty started to ask where in Mexico his ancestors were from, if he was going to be so pedantic and literal, when she remembered the sergeant correcting his Spanish several times that afternoon. Except it hadn’t been Spanish. “Are you a native Spanish speaker? You sound fluent.”

  “Sort of. Not really.”

  She cocked her head, fixing him with a look until he glanced at her. “So, that’s all you’re going to say? You know I’m going to have to draw my own conclusions.”

  “You are free to do so.” A slight smile touched his lips.

  “So, you’re in the witness protection program? It’s okay. I can keep a secret.”

  “Hm. Good guess, but no.”

  “Then you sprang from the forehead of Zeus, fully formed.” She liked his laugh.

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “Everything is complicated. I think you just don’t like being asked very many questions.”

  “I’m usually the one doing the asking.” He didn’t say it unkindly, but it was a reminder that she wasn’t going to get any details about the investigation from him.

  Leaning her head back against the seat, she closed her eyes for a moment. Her mind drifted back to the chamber where Jace’s body was found. It was hard to get the pictures out of her head.

  “There was something wrong in that chamber where Jace was found,” she said.

  “Besides the dead body?”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. He’d made a joke. Maybe there was a personality under that suit after all. “If the ruins were locked, how did they get in?”

  He shot her a look. “You think there were two killers?”

  “I mean how did Jace and the killer get in. Or maybe there were killers, I don’t know. I just mean, how did any of them get in there? Unless they had a key, but who knows someone with a key to the place?” She stopped, thinking hard. “Ron and Liliana were going to meet the curator today at nine-thirty for the first time. Maybe the curator was in on it, too.”

  “We’ve interviewed the curator. He’s never met the Browns, and arrived back in Tulum early this morning.”

  “So, they must have gotten in some other―Oh!”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, they came in through the ship’s entrance, obviously.” She pulled out her phone and found the tide tables. “You can row right into the hole in the wall during high tide. That would have been about three in the morning. We didn’t get to the ruins until about eight.” She stared out into the rain, thinking hard. “If he came out El Castillo, there should be security footage. I saw the camera as we came in yesterday.”

  “We checked all the camera footage from the cameras around the entrances to the ruins. Nobody came in or out during the night. I thought they had given us the wrong day and asked them to check again.” He pulled to a stop on the side of the road and turned the car around.

  She didn’t ask where they were going. “High tide is at three and it’s only one. I’ve been down to cove. The area in front of the canoe entrance stays completely dry until a half hour or so before high tide, and then it rushes in all at once, but getting around the rocks might be impossible at this point.”

  Leander’s expression was grim as he sped back toward the ruins in the blinding rain. Chica whooffed softly in the back seat as if to say she agreed with the new direction they were headed.

  Kitty gripped her seat and tried to think positively. They weren’t simply running through a hurricane to get to a fresh murder scene. They were going to collect the clues they needed to find the killer and get everyone home safely.

  Well, she reminded herself, not everyone. Someone was going to be arrested for bending Jace over a sacrificial altar and stabbing him through the heart. But she was perfectly fine with finding out who that was, especially before she had to spend one more night with them.

  ***

  Chica refused to stay in the back of the car. Kitty considered using her alpha voice and insisting Chica obey, but that wasn’t the sort of relationship they had. Chica had never steered her wrong. They trusted each other.

  “Fine. But you’re going to get a bath after this is over,” Kitty said, opening the door.

  Jumping out onto the sandy trail, Chica trotted ahead of them. Leander checked his watch again and stared into the distance, hoping for a sign of a police vehicle. “The chief said he was on his way,” he shouted into the wind.

  “How much trouble will you be in if you go down there without him?” Kitty asked.

  “Not as much as I’ll be in if I bring you,” he said.

  “Oh.” She looked back at the car. Of course she was supposed to stay there, warm and out of the rain, instead of standing on the cliff’s edge in the storm.

  “Come on,” he said, and headed down the trail to the beach. “I’m not part of their police force, and their rules are even more relaxed than ours. I’ll take my chances.”

  Kitty was glad she’d worn shoes, and not strappy sandals without any tread. She would have loved a warmer coat and some better rain gear, too, but that was asking a lot on a day when regular meals were hard to come by.

  There was a rough sort of stairway leading down to the water and Kitty pushed up her hood so she could see. The next moment, she was sliding into Leander’s back, knocking him forward and nearly sending them both off the cliff.

  He swung his hands out and pushed back, dropping to a crouch so that Kitty ended up in an awkward, half-piggy-back ride.

  “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry,” she said, her face pressed against his hat. She scrambled to find firm ground, her toes scraping against the trail.

  He slowly stood up, straightening until she was on her own two feet. “That wasn’t very effective. If you want to murder me, I suggest you push with both hands in small of the back, closer to my center of gravity.”

  Kitty blushed under her hood. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I’d have Chica trip you up. She’s really good about getting underfoot.”

  “Ah,” he said. He started to turn, then said, “How about you go ahead? I’ll hold on to you.”

  She nodded, but as she stepped in front of him, she realized she wasn’t sure whether he was going to hold her hand, or the back of her coat. She glanced back, and was relieved to see him stretching out a hand. Very gallant. After that attack piggy back ride, he would have been justified in simply holding on to her coat.

  It was slow-going and her thighs had started to burn with the effort, but five minutes later they had reached the beach.

  “The tide is coming in, but it hasn’t reached the little inlet,” she said, letting go of his hand and pointing toward the base of the ruins. Enormous piles of volcanic stone rose on either side of the entrance. As they made their way around the edge and into the small cove, the wind died down. The sudden drop in noise was disorienting, but they plowed forward through the wet sand.

  Glancing back
at the rough ocean behind them, Kitty felt a thrill of alarm. Perhaps wandering into a cave during a hurricane while the tide was coming in wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had.

  “Two minutes, then we’re out of here,” Leander said, as if sensing her thoughts. He had his phone out and was already taking pictures. Chica loped ahead into the darkness.

  Seconds later, they were both standing beside a small, green canoe. Chica was sniffing it all over, running her nose across the oars. Leander took a dozen photos, and then turned toward the ships’ entrance. Without asking permission, Kitty did took out her phone and snapped pictures from every angle, too. He glanced at her, but said nothing.

  Walking forward, they looked up to the place where the murderer― and his victim― must have entered the ruins. The stones of the wall had been chosen so carefully that the opening looked as well-placed as any modern doorway. It sat high up, perhaps twelve feet above them, the darkness of the tunnel looking like the black of night.

  Directly below the entrance, there were marks in the sand. Leander crouched down to examine it. Footprints and paw prints dotted the area.

  “Too bad this is sand. We could have had fingerprints,” Kitty said.

  Leander nodded. Walking around the marks, he stood beside them. “He―”

  “Or she.”

  “Right. He or she, must have stayed too long inside, and when he returned, the water was too low to row away. So, he jumped,” he pretended to land in the sand next to the shoe-shaped deep gouges, “lost his balance and fell forward.” He placed his hands on the ground. It didn’t make a mark, so he pressed harder. Finally, he fell forcefully onto his hands and managed to make prints that were the same depth.

  “But remember, it’s been low tied for a while. It might have been very wet when he―”

  “Or she,” he said.

  “Or she, landed. If the ground was wet, then the murdered could be much lighter than you are, too.” She pressed her handprints into the ground beside his. “If the footprints and handprints are any indication, this is probably a man.”