Skull Duggery

by Aaron Elkins

  “Sounds good to me. Can we walk there?”

  “Oh, sure, it’s practically at the bottom of the hill, right in the middle of town. It’s called Samburguesas.”

  “Hamburguesas?” This was the Spanish word for hamburgers.

  “No, Samburguesas. It’s a pun. The guy who does it, his name is Sam, and he serves—”

  “Hamburgers, I get it. Okay, let’s go. I guess I’m about ready for a burger.”

  IF there was anything that passed for night life in Teotitlán, it had to be Samburguesas, which was jammed with laughing, gossiping people happy to have an excuse to be out in the fresh air on a warm December evening. The place was like a cross section of Teotitlán society. There were grizzled, mustachioed, solitary old shepherds or farmers in from the hills, in sombreros and loose white working clothes; trendier young weavers in plaid shirts and designer jeans; and groups of young and old women, almost all in traditional dress, with their hair in long braids down their backs, and wearing huipiles—wraparound, apronlike tunics—over their housedresses, and rebozos—wide, multicolored cotton shawls—draped over their shoulders. Many of the younger ones used their rebozos as little hammocks in which to carry sleeping infants. A little away from the crowd, on the grass of the church plaza across the street, were the teenage boys and girls, mostly (like teenagers anywhere) hanging around and eyeing each other from same-sexed groups, the boys unconvincingly cocky and show-offy, the girls flirty and giggling. A few of the luckier ones had already paired off and were lounging on the grass farther away and out of the light.

  Sam (they presumed he was Sam) operated from a stand under an awning on the side of the market building, serving hamburguesas and tacos as fast as he could make them, at five pesos each, about fifty cents. Despite the name of the place, almost everyone at Samburguesas was opting for the tacos al pastor, which smelled and looked heavenly, and Gideon and Julie did the same. Sam would deftly shave marinated pork from the sides of a trompo, a top-shaped vertical spit like the Middle Eastern roasters used to cook gyros meat, lay it over two stacked, warm, freshly made corn tortillas, and neatly top the whole with a slice of grilled pineapple.

  With their paper plates of tacos in one hand and warmish cans of Mexico’s most popular soft drink (Coca-Cola) in the other, they managed to snag a newly vacated folding table facing the old church tower, now floodlit as the night grew darker. Gideon cleared the table of the previous diners’ leavings, came back, and sat down.

  “Did you see Tony today?” he asked while they used plastic spoons to lay on condiments from the platter on the table: cilantro, lime, salsa, guacamole, chiles. “It seems to me he owes you an apology for last night. I was wondering if he made it.”

  “Yes, you said that before. No, I didn’t see him, but if I did, I wouldn’t expect one. He flies off the handle once in a while, but basically he’s a good guy. He just—”

  “Takes a little getting used to, yeah. You said that before. I’m sorry, that doesn’t cut it as far as I’m concerned. Here you are, using your vacation time to help out—”

  “Oh Gideon, I appreciate your taking offense on my behalf, but I really think you’re overreacting. Some of your academic-type friends take some serious getting-used-to too. Audrey, for one, or Norton, or the huge one with the pince-nez—”

  “Well yes, that’s true enough—”

  “Or if you want to talk about really creepy, what about Harvey—my God!—or Lyle—!”

  “But that’s different. They’re—” He laughed. “Okay, point taken. I’ll take Tony as he is.”

  For a while they busied themselves with their seriously overloaded tacos, the eating of which required the use of both hands, all of their focus, and the copious application of paper napkins, which were soon piled in a messy clump in the middle of the table.

  “Oh, I have a little bit of news,” Julie said, when they paused to wipe their chins and take a couple of breaths. “Annie’s going to be back tomorrow morning. They settled on the divorce agreement in one day. She said, and I’m quoting, ‘El Schmucko didn’t have enough to make it worth fighting about.’ She also said, ‘He sure doesn’t look like Robert Redford anymore.’ That last was said with a certain amount of satisfaction, I should add.”

  “Good for Annie, but what does that mean for us? Are we going to be heading home?”

  “Well, they said we were welcome to stay as long as we want, of course, but I think we should stick to our original plan—go home at the end of the week.”

  “That’s fine with me. So then are you going to be free for the next few days? Can we do some touring?”

  “Not altogether, no. I—Oops.” She leaned quickly forward as a strip of salsa-drenched pork disengaged itself from the taco and plopped onto the table. Another napkin was produced from the dispenser to clean it up. “I promised to help Jamie with the quarterly accounts—I guess Annie is hopeless at that kind of thing, even worse than I am—but he says we can probably wrap it up in a couple of mornings, maybe only one. So I’m hoping to be available, yes, but not until tomorrow afternoon, anyway.”

  “That works out perfectly,” said Gideon. “I need to write up a report for Marmolejo in the morning, on those bones I was working on today. I know what: maybe we can drop it off personally—I know he’d like to see you—and then continue on into downtown Oaxaca; have lunch out, maybe. There are supposed to be some first-rate restaurants.”

  “Maybe,” said Julie, wiping her chin, “but I bet they won’t be as good as Samburguesas.”

  “You’re probably right.” He swigged some Coke from the can and got up. “I’m still hungry. I’m going to get another taco. Want one? My treat. You can buy tomorrow.”

  AFTER dinner they walked contentedly back up to the Hacienda in the dark, their flashlight throwing weird, flitting shadows on the adobe-brick and concrete-block walls that lined the steep alley.

  “What did you think of Preciosa?” Julie asked out of nowhere.

  “Preciosa? I don’t know, seemed okay to me. A little strange, maybe. And I can understand why Annie calls her Preciosa the Pretentious.”

  “How old would you say she is?”

  Julie, Gideon had learned, had a bit of an obsession about women who employed face-lifts, dermabrasion, Botox, and the rest of the anti-aging arsenal in their own obsessive, futile pursuit of staying young forever. The idea of it simply irked her; she didn’t like to see them getting away with it when she herself was honestly taking age as it came. It also irked her that Gideon typically couldn’t spot a face-lift when he saw one. So when she asked him that particular question—“How old would you say she is?”—in that particular tone of voice, it was inevitably with the purpose of setting him straight about some artificially enhanced actress or acquaintance that she thought might have him fooled.

  “Preciosa?” he said. “Oh . . . late fifties, maybe sixty or so.”

  She was surprised. “I would have thought you’d have said thirties or forties.”

  “Are you kidding? No way,” he said, then added: “The hands. You can always tell from the hands.”

  FOURTEEN

  THE next morning Gideon sat out on the patio in the feathery shade of the casuarina tree, typing the report into his laptop, with a mug of Dorotea’s delicious, cinnamon-scented coffee on the little table beside him. It had been plunked down without his requesting it, along with what he liked to think was a grumpy apology for sending him off dinnerless the previous evening. (“As long as you’re sitting there, I suppose you expected me to make you some coffee.”) Grumpy or not, he was keenly appreciative.

  He also appreciated the music that was drifting up from below; the village marching band, which seemed to play several times a day: all trumpets and brass. The music this morning was slower than he’d heard before, quite funereal, in fact, something like the bands that play for a New Orleans funeral, but even slower, and with a mariachi lilt instead of a jazzy one. This one was a funeral procession too, he supposed; pretty appropriate backg
round music for the work he was doing.

  At a little after ten, he hit the save button, copied the report to a flash drive, and went looking for Julie. When he checked the dining room, he saw Tony and Preciosa breakfasting with a few of the women professors. Tony beckoned him affably over, but Gideon refused stiffly. He hadn’t meant to be rude, but he was still irked at the way Tony had jumped all over Julie at dinner the other night, and he couldn’t help showing it.

  Julie was with Jamie, at a table on the front terrace, going over a mess of accounts and receipts spread out in front of them. They were in a secluded corner that looked not out at the town, but down on the dusty corral twenty feet or so below, where Carl and Juanito, his Mexican helper, were saddling up horses for a morning ride for the women’s group. Gideon stood near their table for a moment, leaning on the terrace’s low stone wall, watching Carl and Juanito and savoring the smells of salty horseflesh, old leather, and sweetly fragrant alfalfa feed. Carl glanced up at him and waved. “Gonna ride out along one of the arroyos this morning. Just half an hour, forty-five minutes, to get them comfortable with the horses. Want to come? Take no time to saddle one up for you.”

  “Thanks, no, not this morning,” Gideon said. There’s room for only one alpha male on a ride like that, he thought with a smile, and it’s not me.

  When Julie caught sight of Gideon her face lit up, producing a lovely, melting glow all through his chest. Was there anything sweeter in his life than seeing her uncontrived pleasure on unexpectedly seeing him? If there was, he couldn’t think of it.

  “Hi, honey!” she said. “Come join us.”

  “Well, you’re obviously working. Why don’t I—”

  “No, no,” Jamie said, beginning to gather the papers to him. “Enough, already. Thank you, Julie, we can finish up this afternoon.”

  A quick, wincing exchange of eyebrow-shrugs between Julie and Gideon sent the same message both ways: There went their plan to go into Oaxaca together. “Tomorrow?” Julie mouthed, and Gideon nodded.

  “Anyway,” Jamie went on, “Annie’ll be arriving at the airport, and I’m going to have to get going in a minute. Carl”—he gestured at Carl, manfully, gracefully cinching a saddle on a fidgety mare—“is tied up with a guest ride, so it’s up to me.”

  “What about your knee, Jamie?” Gideon asked. “Can you drive all right? If not, I’d be glad to pick her up for you.”

  “No, it’s not a problem. The vans all have automatic shifts, so I don’t use my left leg. Have a seat, Gideon, will you?”

  “Julie, I’m glad I found you!” It was Tony, striding toward them from the dining room, still chewing. “I owe you an apology. I was on you like a ton of bricks there the other night, and I had no business doing it. A few too many beers, I guess.”

  Tony rose a couple of notches in Gideon’s estimation.

  “I had no business prying,” Julie said. “I had a few too many beers too.”

  Tony took a chair from another table, pulled it over, and straddled it wrong-way-round, with his elbows leaning on the back. The denim over his massive thighs was stretched tight with the strain. “You see—”

  “Tony, it’s all right, you don’t have to,” Julie said.

  “No, I want to.” He looked at his brother. “Or did you fill her in already, Jamie?”

  Jamie shook his head, looking down at the papers he was continuing to arrange. “Not me.”

  “Okay, then.” Tony took a rasping breath, gathering his thoughts. “It’s like this. What I started to say—”

  Gideon got up, murmuring. “I guess I’ll go—”

  Gruffly, Tony waved him back. “Just sit, will you? I got no deep, dark secret here. I just didn’t want to talk about it in front of . . .” With his chin he gestured at Carl, still busy below with the horses, and well out of hearing range.

  “It’s like this. . . .” he said again and had to stop for another noisy, sighing breath. Deep, dark secret or not, he was having trouble getting it out. “See . . . well, in a way I’m responsible for what happened. With Blaze, I mean. When she . . . when she . . .”

  “Tony, you are not responsible for what Blaze did,” Jamie said with a patient resignation that suggested they had been through this many times before. “Nobody thinks that. Even Carl doesn’t think so. You’re the only one.”

  Tony ignored him. “See, the thing is,” he said mostly to Julie, “things were messy. See, my father made Carl the executor of the will, with full power of attorney—”

  “Technically, it wasn’t power of attorney,” said Jamie. “It was—”

  “Well, whatever the hell you want to call it,” Tony said with exasperation. “It meant that he was running the damn ranch for the two years it took me to get out of jail and show up. Okay?”

  Jamie was silent.

  “And you know Carl, he was working his ass off, and not doing too bad, either, considering it was just a horse ranch at the time. He was the boss man, and Blaze, she was the boss lady. And then, all of a sudden, after all that time, in walks the black sheep brother, who never gave a damn about the place, fresh out of jail, to take it all away from them. How could they not be ticked off?” Unexpectedly, he chuckled. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, I was so big-headed I actually fired him, remember?”

  “Well, for about five minutes,” Jamie said.

  “More like five days.”

  “You fired Carl?” Julie said, her eyebrows going up.

  Tony shrugged. “Yeah, I did. Amazing, huh? See, I just—well, I wanted him out of my hair, you know? I mean, he was already sending me all this advice about how I should and shouldn’t do things when I got back. I figured he’d cramp my style—I didn’t know him then, you understand. So I sent him this letter telling him I was gonna let him go. I knew this guy Brax, you see—I forget his whole name—”

  “Braxton Faversham,” Jamie said.

  Tony smiled. “Braxton Pontleby Faversham, right. Is that a name or what? Anyway, he grew up on this ranch in Oregon, so he knew all about that stuff, and I just figured I’d be better off with him as my head wrangler instead of Carl. But, I don’t know, the more I thought about it, the lousier the idea got. My father really thought a lot of Carl, and I didn’t really know Brax all that well. Besides,” he said, laughing, “who ever heard of a head wrangler named Braxton Pontleby Faversham? So I changed my mind, told Carl I wanted him to stay. But the whole thing—he couldn’t have liked it.”

  “Tony, that is simply not fair,” Jamie said. “Have you ever once gotten even a smidgen of resentment from Carl?”

  “Well no, not from Carl,” Tony admitted, “but, you know, Carl’s pretty good at keeping his feelings to himself. But be honest, how else could he feel? How would you feel? One day he’s the boss of the whole shebang and the next day he’s just another hired hand, taking orders from the jailbird son—the jailbird son on account of whose happy arrival his wife has just taken off with some sleazy ranch hand.”

  When Jamie opened his mouth to protest, Tony shushed him. “Anyway, it wasn’t really Carl I was talking about, it was Blaze. And Blaze—I know you agree with me, Jamie, even if you won’t admit it—Blaze was pretty damn hot-tempered, even as a kid. You’ll never make me believe she didn’t resent it when I came back. She must have thought I was gonna boot her out or something.”

  “Well, what did she say when you showed up?” Gideon asked. It wasn’t his business, but he’d gotten caught up in the tangled story.

  “She didn’t say anything,” Tony said. “She didn’t stick around long enough for me to get there. That’s my whole point. About three days after she finds out I’m on my way—two days before I show up—she’s gone, along with What’shisname—”

  “Manolo,” Jamie supplied.

  “With Manolo.”

  “Manolo and sixteen thousand dollars cash, the entire ranch payroll,” Jamie said bitterly, and to Julie and Gideon: “Did you know he robbed me at gunpoint? It was the worst experience of my life. It was nightmarish, wh
at with his waving the gun in my face and talking that way, without moving his mouth, like something out of Night of the Living Dead.” At the memory a shudder ran visibly up his body and ended by making his head jerk. “I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and he was getting more and more wild. He was like . . . I thought for sure he was going to shoot me.”

  “And you think,” Julie said to Tony after a moment, “that she ran off with this guy because she couldn’t stand losing the ranch to you?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “But I don’t understand. She didn’t just leave the ranch, she left Carl. Why would you feel responsible for that?”

  “Well, maybe it wasn’t only because of me. . . .”

  “It wasn’t at all because of you,” Jamie insisted. “Tony, you’d been residing elsewhere for years—”

  Tony laughed. “ ‘Residing elsewhere.’ Don’t you love it?”

  “You have no idea what Blaze was like. She was just so darn . . . She should have been in heaven. She had this beautiful little baby of her own—Annie—and as far as Carl was concerned, she walked on water; he couldn’t do enough for her. But she just couldn’t be happy, she simply didn’t have it in her. Manolo wasn’t the first . . . the first other man she was involved with, you know that.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Tony said listlessly. “But you know, Blaze and I never got along real well, even when we were kids. I don’t know what it was. I think maybe she resented me because she thought the old man, you know, liked me best of all.”

  “The old man did like you best of all,” Jamie said without rancor. He looked at his watch, straightened the papers, slipped them into a folder, and grabbed his cane. “Oh my goodness, Annie will be arriving in less than an hour. I’d better be on my way. Thanks again, Julie, we’ll finish up easily tomorrow.”

  As he left, Dorotea appeared with a platter loaded with four more mugs of coffee and a plate of nougat-and-almond bars.