The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives

by Catherine Louisa Pirkis

Fuentes had the answer for that. “And what happened to her, when she was so young and full of life?”

  “It was the same day, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded. “My grandfather was literate. Your doctoral candidate will discover his family was of modest means, not poor by the standards of the time. He had prospects.”

  “He has a certain elegance in the photograph, I’ve always thought.”

  “You are perceptive. Unlike the others, he was not in desperate need of the work. When his situation no longer pleased him, he was free to leave.”

  “Alice Jonken was a wealthy young woman. She did not enjoy the jungle and I do not think she was as entranced with archeology—and maybe with Petrus—as she’d expected to be.”

  Dr. Fuentes raised his eye brows.

  “The diaries, which are very lively and detailed—at least until her disappearance—mention her only infrequently.”

  We sat quietly for a moment, each thinking our own thoughts, and glancing, almost involuntarily, at the photograph over my desk. After a moment, Fuentes unrolled the poster I had given him. “I was struck,” he said, “by the shadows. Perhaps they have been distorted in retouching.”

  In the enlargement, it did seem that the shadow of the photographer was more prominent.

  “My thought,” he said, “is that while this was labeled as a picture of your great uncle with worker ( until your fine exhibition, of course) the photographer, was actually looking at my grandfather. What do you think?”

  I compared the poster with the photograph. Once this detail had been pointed out, I had to agree. The shadow of the camera and the photographer indicated a subtle inclination toward Jose Antonio. “That might account for Jonken’s questioning expression,” I said. “Of course, we cannot be sure Alice took this particular photo—although she did take some.”

  We sat silent again for a moment. It was a painfully awkward situation, as each of us had suspicions it seemed impolite to raise.

  Finally Fuentes said, “My grandfather was supposed to take Alice downriver that day.”

  “He had taken her to the nearest city several times,” I said.

  My visitor looked surprised.

  “It’s in the diaries. I have the transcriptions if you would like to read—”

  “That actually strengthens his story. We thought perhaps a romantic interest, although he never said that. It was clear, however, that they were friends. On the day he waited for her, but she never showed up, and he left.”

  “But why didn’t he return to the campsite and help in the search?” I could not conceal an accusatory note.

  “He never intended to return. He was leaving for good. He said that he was frightened by Ernesto.”

  “Ernesto? A much older man, is that right?”

  “Yes. What the people called a brujo—a sorcerer. You rightly identified him as a priest of the old religion.”

  “Your grandfather believed in his powers?”

  “He believed in Ernesto’s power over Petrus Jonken. If there was trouble between the young Jonkens, you can be sure it was because of that man.”

  That was something I hadn’t consciously articulated, but I felt it was true. “He encouraged Petrus about the city—and he turned out to be right.”

  “My grandfather was sure Ernesto knew all along where the ruins were. He just wasn’t willing to tell.”

  “What changed his mind?”

  “I was hoping you knew that. I think he was waiting for something, perhaps something that would excuse, or exorcise, the guilt of bringing a foreigner to the sacred site.”

  “What would that something be?” My voice sounded small as if I’d lost the air under my diaphragm.

  “Some sacrifice,” Fuentes suggested. “As in the old days.”

  There was another long silence. I waited until I could no longer resist the idea which must first have insinuated itself on the day Matt called me downstairs. “Are you good on bones?” I asked, and when he said he was, I told him there was an anomaly in the collection.

  We took the box down to the laboratory. As we opened it, I smelled the dust and the faint earthy scent of old bone.

  “There,” I said, “you can see the length of the leg and arm bones.”

  The body was damaged, too, the breastbone, split, and the ribs, broken. Matt and I had believed—or pretended to believe—that was shipping damage, but in the clear white light of the lab, I was unconvinced.

  Fuentes pulled on gloves and began to examine the bones, handling them with care, even tenderness. On the way downstairs he told me that he’d done volunteer forensic work in both Guatemala and Bosnia. I did not want to imagine what he had seen or the immense catalogue of suffering he had amassed. I, personally, have a fearful imagination, which, doubtless, will keep me from doing anything of great significance.

  Now and then Dr. Fuentes gave a soft grunt, but he did not speak until he had completed his examination and was completely sure in his own mind about the conclusions.

  “We would have to do carbon dating to be sure, but I believe this to be a modern skeleton—it’s certainly nowhere near as old as the rest of the bones. She was in her early twenties, a well nourished woman who had never done hard manual labor. The teeth are excellent, only two missing. Caucasian. My guess would be she was of Scandinavian extraction.”

  My heart skipped a beat. Alice Jonken’s maiden name was Grieg. “Do you know how she died?” I asked.

  “She was strangled.”

  I was astonished. “You can tell that?”

  “One of the easiest deaths to spot. See here, damage to the thyroid cartilage and here, this little bone? That’s the hyoid bone. A broken hyoid bone is the defining sign of manual strangulation.”

  “That couldn’t have happened in shipping?”

  Dr. Fuentes gave me a sympathetic look but shook his head. “The bone, maybe,” he said, “but the damage to the cartilage cannot be accidental.”

  “But then the skeleton was surely crushed in transit?

  He shook his head. “The mutilation was post-mortem, thankfully. Most unusual.”

  I felt sick, and to keep down nausea, I kept talking. “When I saw that damage, I thought we had been wrong. I mean, wrong about the bones not belonging.” Thank God we had not put them in the exhibition! Amos, a non-specialist with an eye for publicity, would certainly have been tempted.

  “You were right to wonder, but take a look.”

  He handed me a magnifying glass and directed my attention to the deep and irregular scratches on the split breastbone.

  “Messy,” I said, but I was thinking of Uncle Petrus and trying to bring the Prince of the Wilderness into some relationship with the mutilation before me.

  “Done with a stone knife. No, no,” he replied to my question, “modern steel knives give quite a different cut. This was an obsidian blade, probably. Obsidian can be made razor sharp, but the flaking leaves it jagged.”

  “Human hearts for the sun god,” I said, half to myself. “The gods were fed on blood; without blood the world would end.”

  “A common belief these days as well.” Dr. Fuentes spoke sadly, and I thought that he had reason to know.

  “She was murdered as a sacrifice? As the price of the city?” And Uncle Petrus, my archeological prince, had perhaps paid…

  “Remember that whoever strangled her may not have made these marks. We cannot go beyond the information of the body. And we have no positive ID for the bones.”

  “If the skeleton really came from the expedition,” I said, “who could it be but Alice Jonken?”

  He had no answer for that.

  “One of the three killed her,” I said. “And Ernesto—” I couldn’t finish and ran to vomit in the laboratory sink.

  “If the
re is no proof,” Fuentes said carefully when I’d recovered myself, “It is as easy to do harm as good.”

  I agreed that it would be a great scandal—even a century later.

  We did carbon dating on the bones to confirm the age, but neither Dr. Fuentes nor I felt that we were required to go further. I had a quiet word with the provost who found a spot for the bones in an obscure mausoleum owned by the university, and over the strenuous objections of some of my colleagues, I arranged to repatriate the majority of bones in the Jonken Bequest. It didn’t seem right to treat them differently.

  I’ve gone back to my specialty, collections and archives, and constructed a little scenario, entirely without proof except for the photograph. I’ve had it enlarged again, in segments this time. I really think Fuentes is right. Alice did take the picture. At another order of magnification, you can see her long hair, distorted, true, but unmistakable in the cast shadow.

  Maybe Jose Antonio strangled her, a crime of thwarted passion, but he was a slight, short man, while Jonken was tall and strong. Regretfully, I’m betting on Uncle Petrus with his cold, bright, questioning glance. I think he’s asking if she’s leaving—and taking her funds with her—or if she’s fallen in love with his handsome archeological apprentice. I think maybe Fuentes’ grandfather gave him an edited version of their story. There’s something else, too, that would never stand up, but which gives me the chills every time I look at the enlargements. I think the camera caught Ernesto, as well.

  You need to get the image up to the highest magnification possible and then the clever technician has to manipulate Photoshop like the wizard he is, tinting, sharpening, adding pixels like fairy dust: and presto! there’s an old man, crouching out of sight, huddling, I believe, from the lens. He’s visible there in the deep shadows and he’s holding something. I see a line of reflected light, and, though the graphics maven is uncertain, I’m sure it’s a knife.

  So there they all are, all the actors in place and the only question is how they got themselves arranged. Who was guilty of her killing, I do not know, but from that one cri de coeur in the diaries, Uncle Petrus must have discovered and been horrified at her mutilation. I am convinced that he stowed the bones years later in one of the crates destined for the Jonken Bequest.

  Why did he do that? Guilt or remorse or a slyness almost beyond imagining? Maybe like Ernesto, he had a sense of ceremony, a concept of what was due to old ways. In any case, sure the skeleton was Alice, who had funded Jonken’s glory and darkened his life, I had the provost promise they would read the burial service for the bones. It was the least I could do for her.

  Someone will find out eventually, I’m sure of that. Someone like me, who trolls the storerooms and pokes into old papers, will come up with the right questions. But the evidence lies safe in the ancient cemetery next to the Green, just a stone’s throw from where my famous relative came to rest. I’m not exactly proud of what I’ve done, but I owe Uncle Petrus such a lot, and concealing evidence does not seem so very bad in this case. But that is the most I’ll do for him. After this, he and his papers and his bones are on their own.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  GRANT ALLEN (1848–1899) was a Canadian science writer and novelist, and a successful upholder of the theory of evolution.

  L. FRANK BAUM (1856–1919) was an American author chiefly known for his children’s books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

  ANNA KATHARINE GREEN (1846–1935) was an American poet and novelist. She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories. Green has been called “the mother of the detective novel.”

  E.T.A. HOFFMANN (1776–1822) was a German Romantic author, jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach’s famous opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffman appears (heavily fictionalized) as the hero. He is also the author of the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the famous ballet The Nutcracker is based. Hoffmann’s stories were very influential during the 19th century, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement.

  JANICE LAW writes novels and non-fiction as well as short stories. Her most recent books are the Lambda award winner, Prisoner of the Riviera, featuring the gay, alcoholic painter, Francis Bacon, and its sequel, Moon over Tangier. She lives with her husband, a sportswriter, in Connecticut.

  C. ELLETT LOGAN, member of Sisters in Crime (past President) and the Mystery Writers of America, has had stories published in three Chesapeake Crimes anthologies (Wildside Press), in To Hell in a Fast Car (Dark Quest), and in Mermaid 13 (Padwolf). Her novel, Miasma, is book one of the “The Quagmire Murders” series. Visit her website at: www.cEllettlogan.com

  The dime novel detective OLD SLEUTH (titular author of his own adventures) was actually the creation of Harlan Halsey, a former director of the Brooklyn Education Board. Halsey’s stories first appeared in 1872 in the weekly Fireside Companion and quickly became a favorite among readers. “Old Sleuth” was not old, but a young man whose favorite disguise was that of an elderly, bearded man.

  JOSH PACHTER is a college professor, short-story writer, editor, translator—and he’s also REBECCA JONES’ father.

  CATHERINE LOUISA PIRKIS wrote numerous short stories and 14 novels between 1877 and 1894, and is perhaps best known today for her detective stories featuring Loveday Brooke, appearing in the Ludgate Magazine in 1894. She moved from writing to animal charity work and, together with her husband, was one of the founders of the National Canine Defence League in 1891.

  KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH’s short mystery fiction has won the Ellery Queen Readers’ Choice Award twice, and has been nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards. Her mystery novels appear under the names KRIS NELSCOTT and Kris Rusch.