Curse of the Painted Lady (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  “Is it some kind of god?” Anlon asked. “He looks like he’s floating down from the stars.”

  Sinclair slapped him hard on the shoulder. “Not a bad guess. Tell him, Cesar. It’s your theory.”

  Cesar looked at Anlon and said, “You asked earlier whether there was any mythology tied to Huaca Prieta. I’ve found none, but elements of this shawl do suggest a connection with a specific Incan legend. A legend which might sound familiar.

  “A great cataclysm destroys the Earth, and from across the water, or sky, depending on interpretation, arrives Aramu Muru. He carries a golden globe and other objects that have special powers. He uses these powers to help survivors of the cataclysm and helps them create great cities in the Andes.”

  “That does have a familiar ring,” Anlon said.

  Turning his attention back to the textile, Cesar said, “When I look at the shawl, I see a man descending from a starry heaven at a crossroads in time. The left side shows a thriving world before his arrival. The right side shows a barren world. The golden globe in his hand is suggestive of the disc of Aramu Muru legend, as is the serpent in the right hand. He is sometimes referred to as a serpent deity.

  “Devlin was aware of the myth, of course, but he discounted it because of the ‘space aliens’ hysteria that seems to have taken over the legend,” Cesar said.

  Anlon frowned. “Aliens?”

  “Yeah,” Jonesey said. Rolling her eyes, she waved her hands in a spooky fashion. “The stargate legend. The portal of the gods.”

  Anlon stared at her, expecting her to continue. When she didn’t, he said, “Afraid I don’t know that one. What’s it about?”

  “Oh, it’s just some nonsense dreamed up by wackadoodles,” Jonesey said with derision. “There’s a legend that says Aramu Muru used the globe to open a portal to communicate with the gods and to transport back and forth between the heavens. Some conspiracy theorist in the seventies wrote a book claiming the myth was a story about ancient aliens. Then, in the nineties, the supposed portal was found.”

  “Really?” Anlon said. “What does it look like?”

  Cesar said, “It is an interesting site, with little in the way of explanation for its location or purpose. A partial doorway, large enough for a person to stand in, cut a few feet into the sheer face of an Andean boulder near Lake Titicaca. Most archaeologists believe it is simply an unfinished structure, probably carved by the same people who built Tiahuanaco.”

  “Devlin was interested in Tiahuanaco, as I recall,” Anlon said.

  “Yes, he was. There are many unexplained mysteries about Tiahuanaco. Who built it? When? How did they do it? What was its purpose? There are many theories, but little proof to declare any one of them conclusively the frontrunner.”

  Sinclair said, “One of the more prominent features at Tiahuanaco is the so-called Gateway of the Sun. It’s an archway with a carving at its center point. The carving is purportedly of Viracocha, the creator god in Incan mythology. Some believe there are parallels between stories about Viracocha and Aramu Muru. In fact, some believe the Gateway of the Sun is Aramu Muru’s portal.”

  “So, you’re interested in the shawl because of the possible connection with Tiahuanaco?” Anlon asked Cesar.

  “Partially,” Cesar said. “Remember, my specialty is discerning history from mythology. I’m interested because the shawl significantly predates the rise of the Incan civilization, and yet it seems to include a central figure in Incan mythology. Then there is the craftmanship. It is far superior to any textile discovered in this part of the world, and it’s several thousand years older than the earliest comparable weaving. And the striking similarity to the Harappan imprint is another mystery. Not just the pattern, but the use of indigo and beading. These things suggest the two were made by the same culture. One that could travel across oceans…twelve thousand years ago. A culture whose mythology — or history — made its way into Incan lore. A culture that might, therefore, be responsible for the creation of Tiahuanaco and the portal structure.”

  Anlon listened to Cesar’s theory while he stared back at the cloth. When Cesar originally asked for his help to investigate a mysterious artifact, Anlon had told Cesar he was a bit surprised by the request. After all, Anlon was a biologist, not an archaeologist. Cesar had smiled at him and assured him that he would find the artifact fascinating. Therefore, Anlon had assumed Cesar’s mystery relic must have something to do with the Munuorians, and while there now appeared to be a loose connection from a legend standpoint, nothing Cesar had described seemed to suggest a direct link.

  The myths about the Munuorians were all “fish-men” legends, stories about men who came by sea, not deities who descended from the heavens. Plus, the garment was made from cotton two thousand years before the Munuorian civilization was annihilated, so how could the scene it depicted be linked to the same cataclysm that wiped out the later culture? Presumably the cotton didn’t sit around for two thousand years waiting for someone to weave it into a shawl after the Munirvo catastrophe. No, the shawl’s age suggested it depicted an earlier, albeit similar, catastrophe. Finally, the Munuorians’ prowess had been with magnetism and stone, not weaving. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, Anlon thought. He recalled the visit to Malinyah’s tomb, and Pebbles showing him Malinyah’s beaded burial cloak. He cautiously ventured a question. “Cesar, are you thinking the shawl is somehow connected to Devlin’s work?”

  “Until you showed me his black stone, I didn’t think so,” Cesar said.

  “The Sinethal? Why did that change your mind?” Anlon asked.

  “The Cinn-a-what?” Sinclair asked.

  “In a moment, Elton. If you please,” Cesar said. “Anlon, come take a look.”

  Cesar repositioned the magnifying lamp over the shawl once more. He gently guided it to the right and adjusted the focus. Then he stepped back and gestured for Anlon to look through the glass. When Anlon gazed through the viewer, a chill ran through his body. He turned and stared at Cesar. The magnifier was aimed at the spiky object below the god’s right foot. Although the stain obscured the object to the naked eye, there was no mistaking the woven symbol under the magnifier: a circle with six evenly-spaced rays.

  “Whoa,” Anlon said. “I wasn’t expecting that!”

  “Yes, you see now why I asked for your help?” Cesar asked.

  Elton frowned and stepped forward to look through the magnifier. With his head perched over the shawl, he said, “You’re talking about the symbol? You’ve seen the star symbol somewhere else? On a stone?”

  “Yes. My uncle had a stone in his collection with a similar symbol,” Anlon said.

  “How interesting,” Sinclair said. “Have you dated the stone?”

  “Not formally, but we believe it to be in the neighborhood of ten thousand years old,” Anlon said to Sinclair.

  “May we see the stone?” Jonesey asked, edging close to Anlon.

  “Uh, I don’t have it with me. I can show you a picture of it, if you’d like,” Anlon said, pulling his cell phone out. Once he located the picture in his photo library, he handed the phone to Jonesey. She moved to one of the table’s other magnifying lights and studied the picture closely. Her face flushed as Sinclair sidled up beside her and looked over her shoulder.

  While the two archaeologists examined the Sinethal’s magnified image, Anlon turned back to Cesar. “You want me to ask her about the shawl, don’t you? That’s why you wanted me to see this. You think Malinyah might help you figure out who made the shawl, how it was made.”

  Cesar flashed a wry smile just as Jonesey returned with Anlon’s phone. Handing it over, she thanked him and sighed. “Pity you didn’t bring it with you.”

  Chapter 4 – Autopsy

  Burlington, Vermont

  September 26

  It was after 9 p.m. when Jennifer arrived at the University of Vermont Medical Center. Entering through the main pavilion entrance, she spied the lobby reception desk. It was staffed by a cheery, elderly volunteer who eage
rly offered to provide assistance.

  When Jennifer asked for directions to Dr. Ishikawa’s office, the elderly woman’s smile quickly faded into a somber, concerned expression. In a soft voice, the volunteer provided the directions. As Jennifer thanked her and turned to leave, the woman patted her hand and offered condolences. The gesture initially surprised Jennifer, but then she realized the impetus behind the show of sympathy. Late-night requests for directions to the medical examiner’s office were likely only made by loved ones arriving to identify the bodies of deceased relatives. Jennifer thanked her again and went in search of Dr. Ishikawa.

  The instructions seemed simple: Take the elevator down one floor and proceed through the emergency department to a door marked “Restricted Access.” Ring the bell and wait for someone to trigger the door to unlock. Then follow the corridor until reaching the medical examiner suite door. There, ring another bell and someone would let her in. Simple.

  Not! Whether the volunteer misspoke or Jennifer misheard, the emergency department was two floors down, not one. And the emergency department waiting room had two doors marked “Restricted Access,” not one. Of course, Jennifer picked the wrong one to try first and was greeted by a frazzled emergency room nurse who rolled her eyes when Jennifer asked for Dr. Ishikawa. The nurse pointed across the room to the other door without a word and then disappeared back into the emergency room.

  When Jennifer finally made it through the correct door, she spotted a thin Asian man dressed in scrubs at the end of the hall. Holding open the secure entry door of the M.E. suite with his foot, he waved to Jennifer. “Hello there. Detective Stevens?”

  She waved back as she paced down the shiny linoleum-floored corridor. “Yep, that’s me. Sorry about the delay. Got my directions a little mixed up.”

  “Don’t worry. Happens all the time. I think they make it hard to find us on purpose,” Ishikawa said with a smile. When she reached the door, they shook hands. “Brett Ishikawa. Good to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” she said.

  With the entry door closed behind them, they walked down a corridor. They passed a kitchenette and Ishikawa stopped in to pour a cup of coffee. He offered to pour Jennifer a cup, but she declined. When they reached his small office, he motioned for her to occupy the sole guest chair while he stifled a yawn and slid into his desk chair. Propping his sneaker-clad feet on the desk’s edge, he took a quick sip and then said, “So, you’re here about the Simpson case, eh?”

  Looking at his mussed hair, stubbled face, bloodshot eyes and wrinkled scrubs, Jennifer suddenly felt bad for wrangling the late-night meeting. “Yes, thank you again for making time to meet with me. I’m sure you’d like to get out of here, so I’ll try to make it quick.”

  “No worries. I’m glad you reached out. You knew the deceased, right?”

  “Uh-huh. Anabel, er, Ms. Simpson, was connected to some cases I worked earlier in the year.”

  Ishikawa eyed her warily and took another sip. “I read about them online earlier today. The kidnapping and the murders. You took out the killer, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Um, something like that,” Jennifer said. She managed to maintain a casual demeanor, but she could feel the warmth rise on her face and neck. If he’d read about Stillwater Quarry, then he surely read about her suspension. And if he’d read about that, then it wouldn’t have taken much research to learn of the Indio Maiz shooting that ended her police career. So much for the “Detective” Stevens cover.

  “Sounds like it was a pretty hairy sitch,” he said.

  She nodded. “It was tense, that’s for sure.”

  “I also got a chance to read the police report, your report about the kidnapping incident,” Ishikawa said.

  “Did you, now?” Jennifer said, crossing her arms.

  “Yeah, cross-departmental courtesy,” he said with a smile. “Paints a very different picture than what the press reported. Something tells me you know more about what happened to Ms. Simpson than I do.”

  Jennifer looked away. “Uh—”

  He placed the half-empty cup on the desk and bluntly asked, “It’s got something to do with the stones, the ones mentioned in your report, doesn’t it?”

  She slowly moved her eyes to meet his and nodded.

  “Stones that can lift a grown man above the treetops and slam him to the ground?” Ishikawa rhetorically asked, his voice thick with skepticism.

  Jennifer had hoped to avoid discussing the Stones until she knew more about Ishikawa’s findings, but now that he had broached the subject, that plan was dashed. As she readied a comment, Ishikawa lifted a file from his desk. “If not for the severity of her injuries, and the bits of stone embedded in her body, I would never have believed such an irrational thing. But there’s nothing rational about Ms. Simpson and what happened to her.”

  Leaning forward, Jennifer asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been an M.E. for a decade, here and down in Baltimore, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said, waving the file. “Up here, we don’t get a lot of murders, but when we do it’s usually cut-and-dried stuff. Gunshot wounds, stabbings, occasionally someone gets bludgeoned during an argument. Now, Baltimore was a different animal. There we saw lots of beyond-the-norm killings. Poisonings, drownings, arson. You name it, we saw it. But this right here, this is X-Files kind of shit.”

  He slapped the file on the desk and pushed it toward Jennifer. She took the thick folder and rested it on her lap. “I hear you. The crime scene photos were bizarre. I take it the autopsy was, too.”

  With a short laugh, Ishikawa said, “Oh, yeah.”

  Tapping the folder, Jennifer said, “This looks like it’ll take some time to go through. Can you give me the highlights?”

  He nodded and folded his hands on his lap. “Sure, let’s start with what I don’t know. I have no idea who killed her, what weapons were used, when it happened or where it happened.”

  While he spoke, Jennifer reached into her tote bag and retrieved her notebook and pen, careful not to tip over the file’s contents. Ignoring the sarcastic tone of Ishikawa’s overview, she opened the pad and jotted down a shorthand summary of his comments. When she was finished, she looked up and said, “Okay. Got it. So, then, what do you know?”

  Ishikawa held up the index and middle fingers of his right hand. “Two things.”

  With a waggle of the index finger, he said, “I know she was killed outdoors. Some place with a stone surface. Granite, to be precise. Granite with moss on it.”

  He paused while Jennifer scribbled away. When she stopped writing, he waggled his middle finger. “And I know the cause of death: blunt force trauma to her heart.”

  Jennifer frowned and lowered her pen. “Really? I thought she was electrocuted.”

  “Oh, she was electrocuted, all right,” Ishikawa said, shifting his hand to lift the coffee cup. “But that was just part of the torture she endured.”

  “Torture? She was tortured?”

  Ishikawa nodded. “Brutally. Hard to believe she withstood it as long as she did, given her condition.”

  “Her condition?”

  “Yeah. During the autopsy, we found tumors in her liver, lungs and colon. I doubt she had more than a few months left,” Ishikawa said.

  The quick burst of unexpected news momentarily shook Jennifer. Torture? Cancer?

  “Of course, her entire physiology was unusual. Very unusual,” Ishikawa said. He lightly hummed a few bars of the X-Files theme song while wiggling his fingers.

  Jennifer frowned. Though Ishikawa’s gesture was intended as comic relief, it came off a little creepy given the context of the conversation. She asked, “What did you find?”

  “Impossible things. Like, bone density similar to a teenager’s. Yet, at the same time, there was significant deterioration in the cell structures of her organs, the kind of deterioration one would find in a centenarian. Except the brain. It showed almost no signs of aging or disease. And her blood was all wrong, too. There wa
s a free-floating enzyme I’ve never seen before, and very high amounts of another enzyme rare to humans called—”

  “Cryptochromes,” Jennifer said.

  Ishikawa’s eyelids fluttered. He lifted his crossed feet off the desk and lowered them to the floor. Scooting his chair closer to the desk, he said, “Yes…exactly. I’d like to believe that was a lucky guess, but it wasn’t, was it?”

  Jennifer closed her notepad atop the autopsy file and placed both on the desk. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “What the hell is all this about?” he asked.

  “I don’t know…exactly,” she said. “There are several possibilities, but I’m not sold on any of them yet. Given what you’ve just told me, there may be other possibilities I hadn’t considered.”

  “Some of the detectives here think it was some kind of cult sacrifice, given the way the body was laid out in the garden. A few think it’s a twisted serial killer. But I gotta tell you, to me, the torture aspect makes it look more like a revenge killing. There’s a very personal level of violence about the torture. The kind of thing you’d see between rival gangs or in a crime of passion,” he said.

  Revenge? A crime of passion? Jennifer thought of the locket. “Hmmm. If it was a revenge killing, how do you see that fitting with the house break-in?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “Well, we believe Anabel had a valuable art collection. The killer may have been after one or more pieces from the collection. Anabel might have resisted telling the killer where to find the art. So, maybe the killer tortured her to get her to talk rather than seeking revenge?”