Grave Secrets

“I phoned Galiano. Nothing popped up when he ran Vicente’s name, but he’s going to dig deeper.”

“What about Nordstern?”

“Doesn’t look good for the Pulitzer.”

More of the look.

“I’m heading to the Hotel St. Malo now. Since Nordstern was your boy, I thought you might like to tag along.”

“I need to finish this facial.”

“I can do it, Dr. Brennan.” Lucien sounded like a second-stringer on a high school football team.

I must have looked skeptical.

“Let me give it a shot.” Please, Coach. Send me in.

Why not? If Lucien’s sketch didn’t look right, I could always do my own.

“O.K. Do a full frontal. Don’t force the features. Make sure they fit the bony architecture.”

“Allons-y,” said Ryan.

“Allons-y.” Let’s go.

The St. Malo was a tiny hotel on du Fort, approximately six blocks east of the Pepsi Forum.

The proprietor was a tall, skeletal man with a wandering left eye, and skin the color of day-old tea. Though less than enthused about our visit, Ryan’s badge spurred him to do the right thing.

Nordstern’s room was the size of a cell, with much the same ambience. Clean, functional, no frills. I took inventory in three seconds.

Iron bed. Battered wardrobe. Battered dresser. Battered nightstand. Gideons’ Bible. Not a personal item in sight. Nothing in the drawers or wardrobe.

The bathroom looked a little more lived-in. Toothbrush. Crest. Disposable razor. Gillette Cool Wave for sensitive skin. Dippity-Do Sport Gel. Hotel soap.

“No shampoo,” I noted when Ryan drew the shower curtain back with his pen.

“Who needs shampoo when you’ve got Dippity-Do?” We returned to the bedroom.

“Guy traveled light,” said Ryan, dragging a hockey bag from under the bed.

“Crafty, though. Knew how to blend with the natives.”

“It’s an athletic bag.”

“It’s a hockey bag.”

“The NHL has twenty-four franchises south of the border.”

“Hockey hasn’t adulterated the American sense of fashion.”

“Your people wear cheese on their heads.”

“Are you going to open the bag?”

I watched Ryan remove several shirts and a pair of khaki pants.

“A boxer man.”

He used thumb and forefinger to extract the shorts, then reached back in and withdrew a passport.

“American.”

“Let’s see.”

Ryan flipped it open, then handed it to me.

Nordstern was not having a good hair day when the photo was taken. Nor did he look like he’d had much sleep. His skin was pale and the flesh under his eyes looked dark and puffy.

Again, I felt a wave of remorse. While I hadn’t liked Nordstern, I would never have wished him such an end. I looked at his possessions, evidence of a life interrupted. I wondered if Nordstern had a wife or girlfriend. Kids. Who would notify them of his death?

“Must have applied for the passport prior to the Dippity-Do epiphany,” Ryan said.

“This was issued last year.” I read further. “Nordstern was born in Chicago on July seventeenth, 1966. Jesus, I thought he was in his twenties.”

“It’s the gel. Shaves years.”

“Get over the hair gel.”

Ryan wasn’t really making light of Nordstern’s death. He was using cop humor to break the tension. I was doing it myself. But his flippancy was starting to annoy me.

Ryan pulled out four books. All were familiar. Guatemala: Getting Away with Murder; Las Massacres en Rabinal; State Violence in Guatemala: 1960 – 1999; Guatemala: Never Again.

“Maybe Nordstern really was researching human rights work,” I said.

Ryan opened a zippered pocket.

“Hell-o.”

He fished out a plane ticket, a key, and a spiral notebook. I waited while he checked the ticket.

“He flew to Montreal last Thursday on American.”

“The twelve fifty-seven through Miami?”

“Yep.”

“That’s the flight Mrs. Specter and I took.”

“You didn’t see him?”

“We rode up front, got on last, got off first, waited in the VIP lounge between flights.”

“Maybe Nordstern was dogging you.”

“Or maybe he was following the ambassador’s wife.”

“Good point.”

“Round-trip ticket?”

Ryan nodded. “Open return.”

As Ryan inspected the key, I stared at Nordstern’s belongings. Obviously the man expected to return to the St. Malo. Had he realized the danger he was in? Had he considered the possibility of sudden death?

Ryan held up the key. A plastic tag identified its owner as the Hotel Todos Santos on Calle 12 in Zone 1.

“So Nordstern was going back to Guatemala,” I said.

When Ryan opened the spiral, a square white envelope fell to the floor. The sound told me what it held.

I retrieved the envelope and slid a compact disk onto my palm. It had five letters penned on a homemade label: SCELL.

“What the frig is scell?” Ryan asked.

“Punk rock?” I was still discomfited by my ignorance of the genre.

“Igneous rock?”

“Maybe it’s a code in Spanish.” It didn’t sound right even as I said it.

“Skeleton?” Ryan suggested.

“With a ‘c’?”

“Maybe the guy couldn’t spell.”

“He was a journalist.”

“Cell phone?”

“‘S’?”

We both said the name at the same time.

“Specter.”

“Jesus, you think Nordstern tapped the kid’s cell phone?”

I remembered Chantale’s mother in migraine mode.

“Did you catch Mrs. Specter’s reference to her husband’s games?”

“Think hubby has a zipper problem?”