Marjorie Thelen: The Hieroglyphic Staircase

“I kept calling for help, I don’t remember how many times. I ran to the top of the pyramid and screamed for someone to help until the two workers who come every morning to help at my work site came into view. I waved to them and told them what I had found. But they were scared. They said it was unlucky to find a dead person. They hung back. So I told them to go for the guard and the director for help. I stayed at the site by myself.”

“How long before help came?” The inspector scribbled on his notepad.

“The guard, it was the one who was on duty at night, came within maybe ten minutes. He checked the body for pulse and found none. He said the man was cold.”

The inspector nodded his head. “We estimate the time of death around midnight. An unusual time to be viewing the pyramids, no?” he observed with a sudden grin that reminded Elena of the Joker in Batman, a smile that wasn’t sincere or real. She didn’t laugh at the man’s sudden turn of humor.

He continued on, watching her unsmiling face. “What else did you notice?”

Elena told him about the eyes and how the man was dressed. How he looked too neat to be lying dead on a footpath. “He wasn’t very mussed up,” she said, “like there had been no struggle. Like someone was waiting for him who knew he’d be on that path.”

“Maybe someone he knew?” asked the inspector.

“Maybe.”

“But no one knows this man. We have found no one who knows who he is. A very strange detail, don’t you think, in a town this small where everyone knows everyone else, down to the intimate details of their lives? Are you sure you never saw this man before?”

Elena’s expression would have been at home in a high stakes poker game, but anger was brewing inside like a geyser coming to blow.

“What exactly are you asking?”

Did he really think she was in cahoots with the murdered man? Was it because she was a stranger? A foreigner?

He shrugged one shoulder. “The director said your credentials are good. He personally talked to your superior. Forgive me, but we can leave no stone unturned. Would you give me the phone number and name of your superior so I can speak with him?”

“Her,” Elena said, trying to sound professional, holding in her fury. The man was doing his job. She had never been privy to a murder investigation. She had to remain calm. But no one was going to frame her for something she didn’t do.

“Of course, I’ll give you her name, phone number, email address. I sent her an email, but she hasn’t responded.”

He turned his notepad on the coffee table in Elena’s direction, and she wrote down the information.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” The inspector stood, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles in his shirt. “I must ask you to come to the morgue to sign some papers and identify the body. Would tomorrow morning be convenient?”

The morgue was the last place she wanted to be in the morning.

At the mid-day meal, which in the small town of Copan Ruinas was served between two and four when shops closed, doña Carolita fussed over Elena with dishes of shredded beef with picante sauce, rice, beans, and a salad of fresh vegetables.

“You must eat, doctora , to keep up your strength.” She wrung the dish towel in her hands. “This murder is terrible, terrible. We never have problems like this in Copan Ruinas.”

Elena pushed food around her plate and resigned her fork to the table. “Don’t worry, doña Carolita, everything will be all right, I’m sure.”

“I am not so sure,” she said in a loud voice, for doña Carolita was a woman of strong opinion and a little hard of hearing. “It is the influence of the city and the hooligans, come to infest our town with their vermin. Ay, qué horror .” She threw up her hands and marched from the room.

Elena drifted to the patio off her bedroom to sit in the cool afternoon shade. She felt ancient, like she had done battle with dragons. First, it had been her prickly relationship with the director, then the thefts. Now a murder, plus the horrible scene with the director in front of Dominic. Then the inspector insinuating that maybe she knew the man who was murdered better than she let on.

She had had such high hopes for this project.

She lit a cigarette from a pack lying on the small wrought iron stand beside the matching garden chair. She inhaled deeply and let the nice, addictive nicotine send calming waves into her bloodstream. Someday she’d give up this disgusting habit, but right now it was pretty darned comforting.

Doña Carolita brought her a small cup of strong, black espresso and left without a word. Elena was grateful for the woman’s quiet attention to her needs and respect for her space. Water splashed delicate circles in a blue and white ceramic tile fountain. Bird of paradise in red clay pots ringed the fountain and gold bougainvillea spilled over white-washed walls.

The peacefulness of the setting settled into Elena’s soul and brought respite from the day’s events. She watched the antics of Carolita’s cockatiel that sat on his daytime perch and whistled selected bars from the song La cucaracha . He peered at her with one eye, as if to divine what was going on in her head.

He wouldn’t want to know, thought Elena. Her mind kept playing in endless detail the scene of discovering the body and those sightless, bulging eyes. They stared, lifeless … surprised.

Surprise. That was what she was trying to put her finger on. The surprise in those lifeless eyes. Was he surprised because he was alone and had not expected an attack from behind? Or was it because he had met someone there, someone he knew, and when he turned away the person had delivered the fatal blow?

She shuddered. What deception had taken place there? Where could she look that she would not see those eyes? Why was it that the mind persisted in automatic replay of those things one wanted most to forget? Dr. Hidalgo had dropped off a sedative that she hadn’t taken. She might, if her mind didn’t soon let up. Who could have done this terrible thing? Was there a connection between the murder and the thefts? It seemed too coincidental to overlook.

She rubbed her forehead. Rest wasn’t an option. Her mind was in overdrive, and the muscles in her back were in knots. She rotated her neck to try to loosen them. Maybe if she went for a walk, talked to someone. But she didn’t know many people, and the young girls who had befriended her from the Spanish language school wouldn’t be suitable. The team from Harvard that she had met when she first arrived had gone farther inland to investigate a remote site.

Dominic.

He had been kind and helpful. He seemed level headed and sincere. He had understood and for that she was grateful. She’d walk over to the clinic to thank him. At least it would give her something to do.

She carried her cup to the kitchen where doña Carolita was washing dishes.

“ Gracias. ”

“But, hijita , you did not eat much.”

“I’m sure I’ll feel better later.”

“Maybe I should make you some soup.”

“No, no. I’ll be fine. I’m going to walk over to the medical clinic. The man there was very kind to me this morning. I need to thank him for his trouble.”

“You mean señor Dominic. He is a priest, they say. But I don’t know what church. It can’t be Catholic because they say he had a wife, and there was a scandal and that is why he came, to get away from all that. It has been our blessing, because he has gotten our free medical clinic built for us. It is a shame that misfortune finds such a good man.”

“A priest?” Elena said, wondering what that could mean. “He doesn’t look very priestly.”