Death at China Rose (Sunshine State Murders), page 14
“As I said, the past is where dreams come from.”
Give it a fucking rest. “Is everything for sale?”
“Of course.” Ancy plucked a fossil from a table, an amber-colored tooth by the look of it. “I’m in the process of reconstructing some of the specimens, such as this small raptor—” he gestured at the birdlike skeleton, “—but everything—absolutely everything—is for sale.”
Was that just a hint of desperation in his words? I pretended to study the raptor, which looked a badass bird to me. But I was really interested in the tools lying on the worktable, most of which bore a stylized hand logo, identical to the one I’d spotted at the campsite.
“I’m curious—how did you acquire your specimens?”
Ancy’s head jerked back, his eyes puzzled. “I dig them out of the ground, of course.”
“You’re a regular Indiana Jones,” I said, my eyes big with admiration. “Were you trained in archaeology at the University of Newnansville?”
“Yes, indeed—I have fond memories of my time at UN. Why, the first dig I worked was at Newnan’s Lake.”
“Do you also teach?”
He shivered. “Academe is a cesspool. To me the tar pits of China or the jungles of Peru are far more hospitable—anywhere there’s treasure to be found.”
“Treasure?” I said doubtfully. “I thought you mostly dealt in dinosaur bones.”
“Dinosaurs are a major interest, but I deal with all the treasures of the past—a pre-Columbian jar, a Calusa arrowhead, a jewel-encrusted cross. When I was a boy, I read about Carter and King Tut. Since then I’ve been obsessed with finding lost treasures of history.” He chuckled softly. “You might say it’s been a lifelong quest of mine.”
“Sort of like the Grail?”
“Exactly like that!” Ancy’s eyes shone, but not with holy passion. In fact, if he’d been a cartoon character, his eyes would be dollar signs.
“You mentioned that you’ve excavated in Florida,” I asked, hoping to turn the conversation closer to home. “I’ve heard people say that Lafitte buried his treasure in these parts.”
Ancy frowned and his eyes widened.
“Have I offended you somehow?” I stuttered. “I only thought...”
“Of course not.” Ancy tried on a smile, but it lacked the wattage of his previous grins. “Do you see anything that might interest Mr. Dyson?”
“This is impressive, but all the bones are rather small. Mr. Dyson was hoping for something much larger.” I spread my arms. “If you had something like a triceratops, he’d be thrilled.”
“I do have a triceratops femur, and a...”
I was shaking my head. “That wouldn’t do,” I said with an embarrassed smile. “My boss isn’t big on science. He’s more of a fan. Now, it needn’t be the whole skeleton, but something like an entire head would work. Mr. Dyson would be absolutely thrilled with a big head.”
Ancy stroked his chin. “I am currently working on a complete specimen—something big—but naturally it would be rather costly.”
I jumped on it. “Mr. Dyson understands that quality doesn’t come cheap. For the right piece, he’ll pay anything.”
Ancy picked up on my feigned excitement. “It’s not complete yet, though I should have the final piece in my possession by next week. Then I’ll have to finish the construction, of course.” He clapped his hands together. “Would Mr. Dyson mind waiting two or three weeks?”
“No problem, just as long as the specimen is big!”
Ancy grinned. “Oh, it’s big all right.”
Something about that self-satisfied grin intrigued me. “How big?”
“As big as they come—after all, we’re talking about royalty here.”
I was startled. “You don’t mean...Can I see it?”
“Ancy, who is this?” a female voice demanded.
We both startled, though how she’d snuck up on us in those stiletto heels, I’ll never know. I recognized the tall blonde from the Worldwide Earth website—it was Ancy’s wife and business partner, Georgia. While Ancy explained my presence, she hovered in the doorway, her indigo blue eyes locked on me, obviously not liking what she saw.
“Who is she working for?” the harridan demanded.
“Mr. Dyson,” Ancy said soothingly, “he’s VP of...something or other at the Cove.”
A cell appeared in Georgia’s manicured hand, like a magician pulling a dove out of the air. “Hello, Cindy,” she said into the phone, “I’d like to speak to Mr. Dyson. He’s supposedly one of your VPs.”
“What’s going on?” Ancy asked. I wasn’t sure if the question was meant for me, his wife or the universe. It didn’t matter—no one answered.
“Mrs. Prince,” I said, regaining my voice, “this isn’t necessary.” In a couple of seconds my cover would be blown to hell, but as the old lie died, a new one took its place. I was now a freelance journalist working on a story about...treasure hunters. It could work.
“You’re absolutely certain there’s no Dyson?” The blue eyes flashed triumphant as she ended the call. “Who are you?”
“My name is Addie Gorsky, and I’m sorry about the misunderstanding.”
Before I launched into my new spiel, Georgia Prince grabbed my arm and was pushing me to the door.
No problem—I’d been thrown out of better places.
Chapter Thirteen:
The Flutter of Graceless Wings
Pop was alone in the TV room, ensconced in a big easy chair. When he saw me, his face brightened. I grabbed a cup of coffee from the beverage bar and joined him.
“Working on something?” I pointed to the laptop on the table. I’d brought Pop’s laptop to him a few days after his admission, but this was the first time I’d seen him using it. Against the odds, he was rallying.
He ignored the question. “I thought you had a late meeting.”
“The interview ended earlier than anticipated.”
“Uh-oh.”
“A minor bump in the road,” I said. “Hell, it wasn’t even the worst thing that happened to me today.”
“That coffee smells good. Get me a cup and we’ll talk.”
I was coaxing another cup from the urn when my cell rang. Without preamble Bambi said, “Moss said you wanted to talk to me.”
With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten about Bambi. Our little talk had waited this long—it could wait a little longer. “Can we get together tomorrow morning, Bambi?”
“I’m going to be in Newnansville most of tomorrow. Look it, can’t you just tell me what this is about?”
I hesitated. I knew damn well that this conversation should be face-to-face, but I needed an answer. “It’s about your mom.”
“Oh!”
“Has she ever contacted you?”
“What do you mean?”
What did I mean? I thought I’d been pretty clear, but before I could rephrase Bambi had lost it.
“Did Charlie put you up to this?” she demanded through her sobs. “Why won’t he leave me alone? I don’t...”
“Bambi?” I said, but the phone was dead. What had I done?
“Anything wrong?” Pop asked when I came back with our coffees.
I shook off my unease. “Nah, just more of the same. I feel like I’m juggling cats—or maybe chain saws.” I brought Pop up-to-date on the case, excluding certain details of course. In my brief career as a PI, I’d learned that both Pop and I were a lot happier if I kept him ignorant of my more illegal activities. Unlike his wayward daughter, Pop was a straight-arrow kind of guy.
“Ancy Prince is up to something,” Pop decided, “but is he a murderer?”
“See for yourself,” I said, pulling the keyboard to me. A few strokes and Ancy’s smiling face filled the monitor.
Pop shook his head. “He’s a handsome man, but I don’t like his smile—too many teeth.”
“For what it’s worth, he struck me as a greedy little worm.”
“Perfect qualities in a killer.” Pop raised the foam cup with both hands.
“Yeah, but going on first impression, I’d say Ancy is too soft for such a brutal killing. He’s not the type to get his hands dirty...or bloody.”
“There’s murder for hire.”
“True, and then there’s his wife.” I pointed out Georgia Prince’s head shot on the monitor. “That woman wouldn’t mind a little blood on her hands.”
“Beautiful woman.”
I frowned at the image. “I suppose, but most of that beauty was bought and paid for.”
“Plastic surgery?” Pop squinted at Georgia’s picture, shook his head. “How can you tell?”
“Women always know.” I thought about the tall redhead in the suit, Brad’s new best friend. With her bone structure, she’d never need a plastic surgeon. I felt Pop’s hand on mine, his eyes puzzled. “Anyway,” I continued, “Ancy and Georgia make quite a pair. The best and worst thing I can say is that they’re well-suited to one another.”
“On the surface it seems you’re making progress, but there’s one gaping hole.”
“No motive,” I said, and motive was the magic key that unlocked all the other doors.
“From what you’ve said, Ancy and Harry were on good terms. With Harry gone, Ancy’s excavation was halted, something he dearly wanted. No motive there.”
“It’s a shame—Ancy’s such a sweet suspect,” I said, drinking the coffee. “But you brought up a good point—what’s going to happen to the dig? Is it cancelled or just postponed?”
“Does it matter?” Pop asked.
“I think so.” My gut feeling was that the dig was connected to Harry’s murder. With Harry gone, the person who inherited China Rose would call the shots on the dig.
“It seems to me that Ancy needed Harry alive.” Pop took a little sip of coffee and set down the cup. “What did Charlie have to say about the ax in his trailer?”
I made a disgusted sound. It’d taken all day for Charlie to return my call, and when he finally did, his answer was unsatisfactory. Part of the problem was one of communication. Without the semaphore of gesture, Charlie was impossible to read over the phone.
“He said the pickax might be his, and that if it was his, someone must have stolen it from his shed, which is never locked.” I didn’t tell Pop how astonished I’d been at Charlie’s response. Even when I told him the ax appeared to be brand new, he still insisted that it might be his. He was going out of his way to claim ownership of the probable murder weapon. “Long story short, Charlie said he had no idea how it got under his trailer.” I silently vowed that at my next face-to-face with the haunted man, I’d get the truth out of him.
“Are the vultures circling, Adelajda?” Pop’s eyes fluttered closed. “Are the police close to an arrest?”
“Not yet. It’s still all circumstantial, but if the cops get one more piece of the puzzle, they’ll pop Charlie.”
“And then?”
“I’ll look at his alibi again—maybe have another go at Adu.” I regretted not pressing the Gas ‘N Go owner harder; maybe something would have shaken loose. “Oh, I forgot—Angie sends her love.” I told Pop about my conversation with Ang.
“Wait until you hear from Angela before confronting Ancy again,” Pop suggested. “She’ll find something you can use on this Ancy Prince.”
“That’s the plan,” I said. “I also need to find a way to talk to Ancy alone—his wife’s the strong one.”
“It’s moving so fast.”
“What’s that, Pop?” I was so wired, I hadn’t noticed how tired Pop looked. “Let’s go back to your room.”
When Pop was settled, I paced the small room until he was deep in sleep. I found the quiet of the hospice peculiarly conducive to thinking.
Ancy had effectively waged a campaign to obtain Harry’s permission to dig at the Ridge. If a big payoff wasn’t in the running, Ancy would not have bothered. So he believed that something valuable was buried at the Ridge, and was determined to get it. This singular idea brought out intense and contradictory emotions. Harry had made love to the idea. Bambi seemed to have taken a laissez-faire attitude, despite her outburst at the hospital about those people. Others, like Moss and Charlie, had scoffed at the notion. Only Charlie had taken it a step further. Beneath Charlie’s mockery of Ancy’s quest for treasure was something else—hatred, loathing, fear?
Charlie knew a lot, but Charlie wasn’t talking. And what about Bambi—was she the innocent waif she appeared? And finally, was there really pirate gold at the Ridge? Was it even a possibility? It was time I found out.
I pulled my smartphone. Ancy said he’d attended the University of Newnansville—the archaeology department would be a good place to start. Archaeology listed seven faculty members, along with a brief profile. At first I was going to contact the chair, and if he wouldn’t see me, work my way down. But that was just a shot in the dark and I liked to do my shooting in the sunshine. I checked out the profiles, hoping something would click. I hit gold with number four.
Associate Professor Jon Monroe had conducted several excavations in north Florida, most famously the dig at Newnan’s Lake, where he and his team had recovered fragments from prehistoric canoes. Ancy had mentioned Newnan’s Lake. There was a better-than-average chance that Monroe knew the golden boy. I shot off an email requesting a meeting, making sure I dropped Ancy’s name in the mix.
I kissed Pop’s forehead. It was slightly warm. I almost asked the nurse to check his temp on my way out, but I wanted Pop to rest. Besides, they’d take his vitals in the morning.
When I got home, Jinks couldn’t decide whether he was happy or sad. He barked and cried and whined all at once. “I know, little guy, I miss him too.”
After a bowl of chow and a long walk, the pug settled down. It took me three stiff bourbons to reach the same state. That was when Berry called.
“I got the names for you,” he said in a flat voice.
“Names?” I said from a Zen-like bourbon haze.
“The names of Ancy’s diggers—you were hot for them at the autopsy.” Without waiting for a reply Berry gave up two names, throwing in their contact information free of charge, which told me what he thought of its worth.
“What about the third man?”
“There’s no third man, Gorsky.”
“But—”
“Listen, things are happening here—I got to go.”
I brewed a pot of coffee. When my head cleared sufficiently, I called Ancy’s diggers. I left a message for the first one, but number two answered on the first ring.
“I already talked to the cops about that night,” a tired voice said.
Before he ended the call, I blurted, “Did you tell them about the man Ancy argued with at the bar?”
The long pause told me he hadn’t.
“Did Ancy tell you to lie to the police?”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t mention it.” Then the guy proceeded to fold like a cheap suit. “At first I thought he was a friend of Ancy’s. I mean, he sat down at the table like they were old pals. Then Ancy told Hal and me to get lost while he talked to his friend, only by then it was clear that there was nothing friendly between them.
“Hal and me took our beers and went out on the front porch for a smoke. Five minutes later the short guy ran out the front door. A few seconds after that, Ancy followed. He asked us where the guy went. Hal pointed to the guy’s white Jeep Cherokee that was driving away.”
“What did Ancy do?”
“Nothing, just watched the Cherokee until it was out of sight. He went back inside and that’s when Hal and me took off.”
“Can you describe the man Ancy talked to?”
“I didn’t get a good look at him. He was short and dark. Once I saw how it was between the two of them, I didn’t want to get caught in the middle.”
“Did he look Hispanic?”
“I guess.”
“One last question—how many guys worked for Ancy?”
“Just me and Hal, and that’s all I’m saying.”
It was as I thought—when Moss and Papa saw the man talking to Ancy, they’d assumed, not unreasonably, that the stranger was one of Ancy’s employees. Which begged the question: who was the dark-skinned stranger?
I reflected that I’d lied to Pop earlier. The vultures were circling after all. I heard the heavy flutter of their graceless wings.
* * *
Judging by its offices, the department of archaeology at the University of Newnansville didn’t rate too highly with the powers that be. Archaeology and its neglected sister, anthropology, were stuck in a cubbyhole of the fifth floor of a Gothic building that had seen better days.
I’d been a little surprised at the alacrity with which Jon Monroe had gotten back to me. A few texts back and forth and we set up a meeting for nine the following morning. But now the professor was running a little late—morning traffic, the student receptionist conjectured.
“I’ll be in the hallway,” I said, needing to work off some nervous energy. She flashed a tight smile and nodded, obviously relieved to see me go. Not that I could blame her. Anxiety was contagious, and I’d been fidgeting like a virgin in a goddamned whorehouse since I arrived.
As I strolled up and down the short hallway, I eyeballed the cheesy exhibits and faded photos lining the walls. I paused at a small display of locally excavated artifacts—just a bunch of shards and fragments to my eye—but there was no mention of pirate gold. I was in the middle of a deep, satisfying yawn when a voice said, “Come now, it’s not that boring.”
I turned. The smiling man was shorter than I but nevertheless possessed a certain stature. He looked as if he’d stepped off of a Mayan stele—thick black hair, squid-ink eyes, generous nose. I returned a sheepish smile.
