by Gigi Pandian
An hour later I had nothing to show for my efforts except for feeling ravenous. Tamarind was helping four anthropology students, so I slipped out of the library for a cappuccino and croissant at the student-run coffee shop. I’d eaten half the croissant before I realized I’d copied Gabriela Glass’s usual order.
Before I could dig into the second half of the croissant, the pastry disappeared before my eyes.
“You spotted me heading here from the library?” I said to the person I knew was behind me.
“This was a more fun way to say hello.” Sanjay popped the last of my croissant into his mouth and sat down next to me.
For a brief window of my life I’d wondered if Sanjay and I would become more than friends, but now the universe had realigned. Sanjay was my closest friend, so much like a brother to me that he often felt like more of a brother than my real one. Because with Sanjay, I had all of the comfort of knowing he’d fly around the world for me (and he had) but none of the baggage of stupid childhood fights. Though apparently I still had to wrangle over food. As long as it wasn’t spicy.
“I’m still hungry,” I said. “Are you going to buy me another one? And how are you not at all wet when it’s pouring rain outside?”
“All I get for bringing you my invisible ink kit is half a croissant?”
“I should have gone to the kid’s section of a magic shop instead of waiting for you.”
Sanjay clutched his hands to his heart. “You wound me. This is a high-end kid’s invisible ink kit. What have you got?”
Though he was acting like his usual self, his dark eyes revealed how tired he was. He’d had bad luck with assistants recently, and the Napa Valley theater where he used to perform two sold-out seasons a year had burned in recent fires that devastated the region, so he was trying to figure out his next steps. He’d been rehearsing a new act, inspired by his trip to Japan, that he hoped would be a big success. I’d helped him with a couple of his shows in a pinch, so I knew how much practice it required to be a successful magician. Sanjay had mastered the mix of rigorous sleight of hand, physiological manipulation, and showmanship.
I showed him the cobra sketch Rick had presumably drawn. “I think there might be six or eight more snake heads around this central cobra head.”
“Like a naga?”
“Exactly a naga. And maybe more clues.”
“Clues? Okay, Velma. I’ll see what I can do.”
I already knew Rick had changed fact into fiction with the names of the family and missing treasure. What other details had he hidden? If Rick was searching for an Indian treasure he called the Serpent King, could there be more clues in the drawing I’d dismissed?
Seven- or nine-headed naga statues were found across India. The naga could be worshiped on its own, but was more widespread as a protector—either watching over the Buddha, as it was depicted in bronze and sandstone sculptures, or guarding treasure, as in the Kerala temple with a cobra lock that nobody had yet breached, the lock that had intrigued my student Wesley.
I got us each another pastry while Sanjay got to work. When I handed him the puff pastry, he shook his head. “All I’ve got so far is the visible sketch. And an amateur one at that.”
“He’s a writer. Not an artist.”
Sanjay steepled his hands together. “He’s a dude who’s manipulating you.” With a flourish, he produced a hardback copy of Mayan Glass. “Look at his photo on the back cover. Is it humanly possible to look more pretentious?”
“Because he isn’t smiling?”
“Of course not. I don’t smile in my professional photographs. Men don’t smile. It’s his jacket. Patches for all the places in the world he’s visited? Really?”
I tried to snatch the book away, but it disappeared.
“What’s the deal with this sketch?” Sanjay asked.
“It’s a long story, but it looks like there’s a real treasure he wants my help finding. And since he’s an eccentric author, he won’t tell me exactly what’s going on. He’s asking for my help through his fiction.”
“That’s actually pretty cool. I wonder if I could do something similar in one of my acts. Hmmm…” His eyes wide, he turned back to the paper, but shook his head a moment later. “Nope. There’s nothing more here.”
“Nothing?”
“This is just what it looks like: a pencil sketch of a cobra.”
I was back to where I started. No clues in the real world. No hidden drawings. Whatever Rick was trying to tell me was hidden in his text.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Sanjay said. “He said he wanted feedback, right? Your feedback is his artwork sucks and you don’t appreciate being jerked around.”
“Right. Because that’s the way to win someone over when you meet them.”
Sanjay blinked at me. “Meet them? You’re going to New York for this—”
“He’s coming here.”
“This is getting weird, Jaya.”
“I know.”
Chapter 15
I spent Sunday answering student emails and preparing for the last week of the semester, and barely slept Sunday night, in anticipation of my meeting with Rick Coronado.
Tamarind insisted on going with me to the Ferry Building at dawn for, in her words, my “clandestine meeting with the delusional author.”
“I’m your BFF number two,” she’d said, holding up her arm to pre-empt any objections. “Don’t try to object. I know Sanjay is BFF number one. But he’s a creature of the night. No way he’s in top form before sunrise. Librarians get the job done.”
Tamarind kept a lookout from behind a manga comic at the coffee house with glass walls, while I paced through the central corridor of the Ferry Building. We kept in touch by chatting with each other through our phones hidden in our jacket pockets. The sun was beginning to rise over the bay from the east, but Rick was coming from another time zone. What counted as sunrise?
“Have you thought about a strategy to get him to talk?” she asked. “You could seduce him—”
“I’m not seducing him.” I turned and gave her a sharp look.
“Don’t look my way! That’s the whole point of me being over here and us talking on these walkie talkies.”
“They’re phones.”
“In walkie-talkie mode. Over and out.”
“He wants to talk to me. I don’t need a strategy.”
An hour later, I wasn’t so sure. Rick Coronado hadn’t arrived and I’d called him three times.
“I need to get to work,” Tamarind said from my side, having given up on our walkie-talkie phone plan. “Sucks that he blew you off. It’s definitely after sunrise.”
“I have to get to class too.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re moving.”
“I’ll stay a few more minutes.”
A few more minutes turned into an hour. Because I couldn’t believe he’d ditched me and wouldn’t answer his phone. He was the one who’d asked for my help in the first place!
Damn, it was the height of rush hour. I’d never make it to campus before my class started. I hated to ask for a favor, but…
“Naveen Veeran,” he answered on the second ring.
“I’m not in your phone contacts?”
His sigh was audible. “It’s the polite way to answer the phone.”
“Are you on campus already?”
“Of course. It’s a busy week.”
“Listen, I might be a few minutes late to my History of the British Empire class because of traffic. Could you check on my students, and cover for just a few—”
“I have my own work to do. You should be more prudent with your time.”
“Could you walk over and—” The phone clicked off. “Leave a note on the door,” I finished, speaking to nobody.
I wished I’d been on a landline phone so I could have slam
med it into the receiver.
I sent a quick email to the class list saying I might be a few minutes late, hoping at least a few of them would see it in time to tell the rest to wait, then drove as fast as my roadster would go.
I arrived on campus twenty minutes after the class was scheduled to begin. The classroom doors were both closed, which was a good sign. I skidded to a halt, my heels wet from the misty rain outside, and eased open the door at the back of the classroom. Naveen was standing at the front of my class answering questions.
“Here she is,” he said, then lowered his voice as I reached him. “I did it for them.”
“Thank you. I’d be happy to return the favor.”
The look of indignation on his face shouldn’t have surprised me. Of course the punctual Naveen Veeran had never needed anyone to cover for him in his life.
“You didn’t cover research methodologies?” he whispered, packing up the papers on the lectern.
“This is an intro class.”
He left, shaking his head.
I put all thoughts of Naveen out of my mind as I taught. I stayed for half an hour after class ended to answer more questions, then closed the door to my office and enjoyed the first silence of the day.
“Why couldn’t he simply have a phone conversation like a normal person?” I said out loud. Yes, I was completely aware I was the only person in my office. Except for Ganesha. Who I wasn’t in the habit of speaking to.
Rick still hadn’t gotten in touch to explain why he stood me up.
I would have lost my mind if it hadn’t been the busiest week of the semester. In my twenty-student advanced historical research seminar that afternoon, the projects ranged from a comparison of the vastly different ways historians described a single event, with the student tracking down original sources to try and determine which historical account was closest to the truth; to a student interviewing professors of different disciplines that involved historical research, including archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, to see how each area approached history.
And then there was Becca’s project showing each stage of lesser-known facts about San Francisco’s sunken ship landfill. Given how much time she wanted to spend asking me questions, I was betting the project would be the most comprehensive paper. I didn’t think it was likely she and Wesley would find their missing sunken ship, but I was hardly disappointed about that.
After class I went straight to office hours.
Before I could drop my bag into my desk drawer, Becca stepped into my office with a look of concern on her face.
“Are you all right, Dr. Jones?”
I hadn’t thought my distraction over wondering what had happened to Rick showed on my face.
“Is it a guy?” she asked, then immediately reddened. “Sorry! I don’t know why I said that.”
I laughed. “It is, but not in the way that you think. Tell me what’s going on with your letter about the sunken ship. How can I help?”
I was surprised to see a flash of annoyance cross her face.
“I’ve actually got one more thing I want to look up first,” she said. “You’ve got a long line of people waiting to see you, so I’ll come to your next office hours.”
Ah. That explained the annoyance. She was frustrated at herself for not being further along in the project.
The following student asked if the due date was firm for properly formatted footnotes as well (it was), and the next asked if I could help her untangle her thesis statement that had gotten muddled (I did). Wesley Oh was the fourth student to arrive. His orange skateboard was poking out of the top of his backpack as usual.
Wesley gave me an embarrassed smile as he tugged at his uncouth hair. “I know I’m not one of your students and there’s a line out here…”
I returned the smile. “There’s time. Come in.”
Since Naveen hadn’t budged on helping Wesley with his research methods class proposal because it was one day late, I gave him some ideas for various ways to track down the origins of an unknown letter from clues about the writer to authentication.
When the last student left at the end of an especially busy afternoon, I stood to see him out, and found one last person waiting for me in the hallway. One who wasn’t a student.
They say people can smile without the sentiment reaching their eyes, but in Lane’s case, his eyes were so expressive I could see their hopeful smile, even though the expression didn’t reach his lips.
“Jones.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I can’t do this right now. I’m not—”
“I know.” Lane didn’t step into the office, but as he leaned forward and handed me an envelope, I breathed in the faint scent of sandalwood that brought a tidal wave of memories. “A peace offering.”
“This isn’t the bracelet,” I whispered, accepting the thin envelope. “Or the ruby.”
“No. And it’s not to open now, but when you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To know something about me I should have told you a long time ago.” He smiled, but now his lips were turned up into a forced smile while his eyes held a sadness I didn’t understand. I already knew the worst about him. What else could he possibly have to tell me?
I wish I’d been ready to ask him more then. I didn’t realize how precious this time together could have been.
Because the following day, Rick Coronado’s body was discovered in the San Francisco Bay.
Chapter 16
The body hadn’t been identified yet, but I knew it was Rick. It was his unique bomber jacket with patches from places he’d visited. It was the one from his author photo. Nobody else in the world owned the same jacket.
I saw the story on the news when I stopped by the student coffee house, which was nearly deserted now that many of them had already cleared out for winter break. The sound was too low to hear, so I asked the barista if she could turn it up.
I felt like the air from my lungs was being squeezed out of me. My whole body felt heavy. Rick Coronado was dead. He’d been coming to San Francisco to see me. I alternated between feeling a numb sense of shock—surely there was some mistake—and grief for the great writer. And also, anger at Rick’s choices. What hadn’t he been willing to tell me? What had he gotten me involved in?
I didn’t think I was actually hyperventilating, but I was close. I wished I’d paid more attention in those yoga classes I’d gotten kicked out of when I was younger. I never gave any credence to how one’s breathing matters. But as I became light-headed and felt my palms begin to sweat, I would have traded my skepticism for a full gulp of oxygen.
It took me several seconds to realize the ringing I heard wasn’t buzzing in my ears but the sound of my phone.
“Jaya,” Miles said. “Thank God you answered. We need to talk.”
“You saw the news too?”
“Your threatening letter made the news? How did they—”
“Threatening letter?” I felt woozy again. “I’m talking about Rick being dead.”
“Rick is dead?”
“Where are you?” I asked.
“You mean dead like you’re not going to help him ’cause he’s a jerk so he’s dead to you?” Miles’s voice shook. “Ha ha? Right? Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Dead like murdered. Where are you?”
“Outside your office. I was going to organize your last batch of mail when I found it.”
“Stay there.”
“Hell no. Didn’t you hear me? A whack job left you a threatening note. And now I know he’s a murderous whack job. I’m coming to you.”
“Fine. I’m at the student café.”
“Where’s the note?” I asked when Miles found me five minutes later.
“It’s evidence. I didn’t touch it.”
I groaned and stood up as Mil
es sat down.
“We’re calling the police,” I said. “Will you go back inside my office with protection?”
“I trust Tamarind to protect us more than the police.”
“You can call her too.”
I called to report the break-in and threatening note. Only when I said it was related to the murder of Rick Coronado did that get their attention. They agreed to send someone immediately.
Tamarind, Miles, and I waited in the hallway outside my office for the detective to arrive. It turned out to be two of them.
“You knew Coronado?” the younger one asked after getting our names.
“Not well, but I recognized his jacket when I saw it on the news, and they said he hadn’t been identified—”
“We’re waiting to get in contact with the family before releasing the details,” the older one said. “The press only got a hold of it because the people on the beach who found the body posted about it on social media. None of that, all right?”
“You knew who he was already?” Tamarind asked.
“You said your break-in was related to this matter?”
“I’ll get the door.” I got out my key.
“Don’t touch the handle,” he said. “We might be able to lift prints.” He took the key from me and eased open the door.
“Where’s this threat?” his partner asked.
“Right on the center of the—” Miles broke off and swore. “It was right there! On the top of her desk. I swear—”
“Uh huh.” The older detective looked almost bored.
“Hey,” Tamarind said, “if Miles said there was a threatening note, there was a threatening note.” She turned and whispered to Miles, “Didn’t you take a photo of it?”
