Aaron Elkins - Skull Duggery

“On the fact that I know who this man is, and he was most certainly alive six months ago.”

That very satisfactorily took the wind out of Bustamente’s sails. “You know… you saw… well, who is it-was it?”

“He claimed his name was Manuel Garcia. A vagrant. I had him in the jail for a night in May. Then I sent him on his way. I myself put him on the bus to Oaxaca. I watched the bus leave.”

Bustamente leaned back, narrow-eyed, reassessing him. “And why did you not bother to tell me this earlier?”

“Because you didn’t bother to ask me,” Sandoval said spitefully, but a moment later he felt a stab of guilt-well, a prick of guilt-partly because he knew he was being petty, but mostly because he knew it wasn’t the truth.

Why then had he kept it to himself? Because he’d been hoping that Bustamente would conclude that there was nothing sinister about the man’s death, that it had been the result of exposure, or a simple fall, or a heart attack, or best of all that the cause had been impossible to determine. Then Sandoval would have had Garcia quietly buried in a nameless grave at the far corner of the cemetery, an anonymous, unmourned death with no follow-up required. To have supplied his name would only have complicated things, and to no useful end. That far he’d been willing to go to preserve his and the village’s tranquility. But homicide? Murder? No, duty required otherwise, and for Sandoval duty was paramount.

Besides, Pompeo was sure to find out.

“And what else do you know about him that you neglected to tell me?” Bustamente asked coldly.

“Nothing at all.”

Nothing beyond what he knew within ten seconds of setting eyes on him: Manuel Garcia was going to be trouble. ALL the rest of that day, Sandoval, Pepe, and Pompeo searched diligently, twice walking the two kilometers that the burro had carried the body, and then back; four times altogether. The chief’s back locked up with an audible click after two hours of bending and stooping, so that he was reduced to prodding at objects on the road with a stick. Young Pepe began complaining of neck and knee pains not long after that, and even the granite face of the indestructible Pompeo wore a look of suffering by the time they were done. In all, they retrieved sixty-five pesos in small coins, five shotgun pellets (collected, just in case), and a Belgian five-cent Euro coin. But of anything even vaguely resembling a . 32-caliber bullet? Not a sign, not a hint. TWO or three times a week-the number was left to his discretion-Sandoval had his dinner up at the Hacienda, a familial perk that went along with his being the brother of their award-winning cook Dorotea; a delightful arrangement as far as he was concerned. He had eaten there the previous evening, and being conscientious about presuming upon the Gallaghers’ courtesy, he would ordinarily have avoided dining there twice in a row. But after the day he’d had, he was in sore need of the restorative powers of Dorotea’s cooking. An exception was in order.

He parked his car in the lodge’s lot and made his way, somewhat more stiffly than usual, to the buffet table in the dining room. Sometimes he would eat with the guests to keep up his English skills-necessary because on summer weekends the village overflowed with American tourists-and because it pleased Mr. Gallagher to show off his relationship with the jefe de policia. But Tonio Gallagher wasn’t in residence this week and Sandoval was in no mood to sharpen his English. Instead, he carried his food to a separate nook at the back of the dining room that was kept for the various Gallaghers. He sat himself slowly and carefully down, with something between a groan and a sigh. As always, the smell of Dorotea’s thick, smooth mole sauce went a long way toward reviving his spirits.

After a while he was joined by old Josefa Gallegos, who supervised the housekeeping staff, and Annie Tendler, the receptionist. Josefa was Mexican and Annie was American, but both, he knew, were somehow related to Mr. Gallagher, as was everybody else in a management position at the Hacienda. From the beginning it had been a family affair.

As usual, Josefa had little to say. Elderly and increasingly deaf, she gave him a grunted buenas tardes and immediately set to attacking her enchiladas de pollo con mole poblano. Annie, also as usual, was more talkative.

“You don’t look your usual cheerful self, Chief,” she said in her perfect, idiomatic Spanish.

Sandoval had always found Annie easy to talk to-always a smile at the corners of her mouth, that one; never grumpy or taciturn, a good talker and a good listener both-and before they’d gotten to their coffee and flan he’d told her the whole story.

“We looked and we looked. It’s nowhere to be found, Anita. You don’t know how I hate to turn in my report without having found it. The policia ministerial will find it, I know they will-they have so many resources at their disposal-and we will look like bumbling incompetents. I will look like a bumbling incompetent.”

“You’re positive it’s not still in the body somewhere?”

“Yes. Well, not positive, no, but that is what Dr. Bustamente says. And I’m afraid to poke around in that thing myself. I wouldn’t know how to do it. I don’t want to do it.” He shuddered. “And then on top of that, there is the report I am required to file with the policia ministerial. How do I do that, what do I write? I know nothing of such things. The last time this happened, everything I did was wrong, but did they tell me how to do it right? They did not.”

“Couldn’t Dr. Bustamente help you with that?”

“Bustamente,” he said scornfully and drew himself up. “I refuse to give him the satisfaction.”

“Chief Sandoval,” Annie said slowly, “I have an idea.”

He looked at her with a modest upsurge of hope. An idea was one idea more than he had. “Yes?”

“You know I’m going to the United States in a couple of days. Well, my cousin Julie is arriving tomorrow to take my place, and her husband is coming with her on vacation. I’ve never met him, but he’s a forensic scientist who works on such things all the time. He might be able to help you, to examine the body, maybe find the bullet, or at least give you some advice. Maybe he could help you with your report. I’m sure he would know about these things.”

Sandoval considered. “But would he be willing to do that? A prominent man, on vacation, after all…”

“From what Julie tells me about him, he’d like nothing better.”

“He hasn’t seen that thing,” Sandoval muttered.

“What have you got to lose by asking him?”

“Indeed, nothing,” Sandoval said thoughtfully.

“He’s supposed to be very famous, you know. They call him the Skeleton Detective.”

“Skeleton detective.” Sandoval uttered a short laugh as he dug into the flan, then uttered what was for him a rarity: a joke. “I suppose you wouldn’t happen to know any mummy detectives?”

“Not enough chiles in the flan,” Josefa muttered in her thickly accented English, possibly to them, possibly to the flan itself. “She’s supposed to be such a wonderful cook, how is it she don’t know to put enough chiles in the flan?”

It was a view of the ancient city that the builders themselves had never had, and had never imagined that anyone, not even the great birds of the air, could ever have.

Julie had nudged him from an in-and-out doze to look at it.

“We there? Already?” Gideon murmured, eyes not yet altogether open.

“No. Almost. But look down there. I’m not sure if it’s Aztec, or Mayan, or what, but I knew you wouldn’t want to-”

“If it’s near Oaxaca,” he said, yawning, “then it’d be Mixtec or Zapotec. Where exactly-” His eyes popped all the way open and then some. “Wow, that’s Monte Alban! I didn’t know we’d see it from the air. What a sight.”