Alex Archer - The Matador's Crown

No, it didn’t look as though the packing paper had been disturbed in the center.

Had the man on the bed been transporting stolen artifacts? It made sickening sense. Port-side cities like Cádiz were rife with small operations that trafficked in stolen and looted artifacts. Annja wanted to string them all up and force them to understand they were robbing an entire culture.

“Who was here before me?” she asked the dead man. “And what did he take from the crate?”

She was no forensics expert but could make an educated guess how long the man had been dead. His skin was pink at the bottom of his hands, which were flat on the bed, indicating the blood had settled. That meant six hours after death. He must have been murdered around midnight. It was a guess, though.

Slipping a hand inside her backpack, she drew out a digital camera and took a picture of the statue, flipping it over and getting edge shots of it as well as inner shots, trying to match the previous shots she’d taken while at the dig site. She and Harlow had uploaded those photos to their laptops. Then she snapped shots of the empty wood crate from all angles.

She wouldn’t take a picture of the dead body, but she did take another look at the man’s back to note the exact position of the wound. Set at the base of the neck and to the left of the spinal column, it looked too messy and wide for a bullet, but an exit wound could tear the flesh if the rifle had been high caliber. She adjusted her guess to a knife with a narrow blade.

She had the urge to search the dead man’s pockets for a wallet and identification except that she heard footsteps down the hallway. The door, which she hadn’t pushed closed, crept inside an inch.

Stepping out into the hallway, she spied a maid and grabbed her by the arm and said in her most theatric Spanish, “He’s dead! I was going into my room, and his door was open. Send for the police!”

2

Annja had waited until a pair of officers had arrived at the hotel, and answered their brief questions. They’d asked her to come along to the Cádiz city police station.

She relayed all the information she could to a Maria Alonzo—a female officer Annja decided wasn’t in a high position. She merely nodded and jotted things down and didn’t prompt with leading questions. The officer then said she’d return with Annja’s belongings in a few minutes and left the room.

Having been escorted to an interrogation room upon arrival at the police station hadn’t bothered Annja. Of course they would be thorough. And, having been on the scene, she could understand how she might be construed a suspect. But she wasn’t going to sit patiently for long.

She still had one more day at the museum planned, working alongside James Harlow. The murder mystery she would leave in the capable hands of the Cádiz police. But the question of what had been inside the wooden crate tread on her turf. And whatever it was had been worth murder to someone.

It wasn’t related to the bronze statue, she suspected. Or else wouldn’t the murderer have pocketed that, as well? There was a possibility whatever had been stolen wasn’t even an artifact. But the crate and the packing materials screamed archaeological interest.

She got up from the uncomfortable metal folding chair and stretched her arms over her head. Despite its seaside location, the heat index could rise to blistering before noon and the room didn’t have air-conditioning. She had waited an hour alone in this room before an officer had arrived to get the details from her. She was hungry, yet her system buzzed with nervous adrenaline.

“Señorita Creed?”

A second officer strolled in, favoring his left leg with a slight limp. He set her heavy canvas backpack on the table. He stood back, thumbs hooked into the front pockets of his brown, creased slacks. He wore the force’s green flak jacket with the gold policia emblem emblazoned across the back over a yellow-and-blue-striped shirt. Visible under his left arm, a holstered pistol. The big silver buckle of his belt was either a black enameled bucking horse or a bull. Annja couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to look too closely.

“César Soto,” he offered, but didn’t offer his hand. “Chief Inspector, Cádiz PNP.”

He wore a nonissue beige cowboy hat low over his brow, which emphasized his dull, black eyes. He needed a shave, and sweat slicked his cheeks and nose.

“Am I free to leave?” she asked, fingering the backpack strap. “I answered all the other officer’s questions.”

“Just a few more minutes, if you don’t mind, Señorita Creed.” He spoke English well, with only a hint of a Spanish accent. “My assistant is typing up her report, but I wanted to go over a few key points with you that I don’t quite understand.”

He pulled a credit-card-size digital camera out of his jacket pocket and set it on the table. It was her camera. Annja picked it up and turned it on.

“We uploaded and then erased the contents,” Soto said before she could verify that for herself. “Tell me why a woman who happens upon a murder scene moments after renting a room in a hotel takes pictures of the incident.”

“I didn’t photograph the victim.” She winced. As if that made her amateur-photography expedition sound more virtuous. “I’m an archaeologist, Officer Soto. I explained to your assistant, when I arrived at my room the door next to mine was open, and I am, by nature, curious.”

“And apparently quite brave to walk in on a dead man?”

“I’m also accustomed to dead bodies.”

“Is that so? How often do you come across a fresh kill?”

More often than she was willing to reveal.

“Not often,” she offered carefully. “I’ve learned to view the scene with an unemotional eye for detail. I hadn’t expected to see an item on the man’s dresser that I had touched less than twenty-four hours earlier.”

“The bronze bull we’ve taken into evidence?”

“Yes. It’s possibly a statue of Baal, the bull god of thunder and rain. A fertility god.”

“And you dug that up at a dig site near Jerez?”

“Puerto Real, yes. Professor Jonathan Crockett’s dig. I’ve given the officer this information. So, yes, at the time, it felt natural to photograph the evidence.”

“You Americans are a strange breed.” Soto shifted his jaw and a bulge pushed out his cheek. Annja figured he had chewing tobacco and now noticed the leathery scent that surrounded him like a rancid perfume. “You ever work forensics?”

“No. But I’ve worked alongside professionals from the field. I know it sounds odd, but trust me, it was an innate reaction to take out my camera.”

“With a dead body lying feet away. Yes, I’d mark that as odd, for sure. If not suspicious.”

“He was dead before I arrived, Officer Soto. Even without a forensics background I could determine that, as I’m sure your investigating officers also did.”

“You didn’t take any pictures of what had been in the crate?”

“There wasn’t anything in the crate when I arrived.”

“You could have removed evidence.”

“I didn’t take anything. I give you my word.”

His forehead lifted in a dark chevron beneath the hat brim. He didn’t know her from a tourist. Or a thief, for that matter.

“Who was the man, if I can ask?”

Soto studied her with slow calculation. “He was a guitar player from a local club.”

“His name?”

“That’s not public information.”

She nodded. It had been worth a shot.

“Although, you’ll learn soon enough. It has already leaked to the press.” He eyed her as if she’d just spat at him. The tobacco bulge shifted from one cheek to the other. “I hate the press and all forms of media.”