Chapter 7: Exegesis

The public defense attorney assigned to Carlos Lorenzi looked bored. She sat in a chair behind her client, literally twiddling her thumbs. Lorenzi, in contrast, sat absolutely still, staring at the mirror.

"Is he trying to intimidate us?" Ross wondered. He, Eames, Logan, and A.D.A. Kent watched the suspect through the glass. They'd decided not to start the interrogation until he started fidgiting.

Eames shook her head. "He's trying to figure a way out of this. When he was arrested before, he turned in the guy who hired him for a deal. The downside to that is he doesn't get paid. If the guy who hired him isn't caught, when Lorenzi does get out of prison he still gets his money. I've heard of some hired guns demanding bonuses for going to jail for their clients, though more often the money goes to their family."

"We've got an airtight case against him for two attempted murders. I can't see this guy doing that kind of time for anyone," Kent said.

"I don't think he will, but he's thinking about it," Eames replied.

Ross glared at the man through the glass. "This monster shot a girl in the head in front of a cop over a piece of paper."

"He probably wouldn't have shot her if Eames hadn't shown up," Logan speculated. "He was probably planning on dragging her off somewhere and torturing her for what he wanted."

Eames' eyes narrowed in a glare she wished Lorenzi could feel. "If you can't beat them, shoot them." She'd underestimated Lorenzi. He might have been a two-bit thug, but he was self-contained, disciplined, strong, stoic, and cold. If he'd had full use of his right arm when he attacked her, she would probably be dead.

"The attempted murder charges will hold up, but what I really want is some concrete evidence linking him to the murder of John Doe," Kent complained. "I've heard about his attorney, Tamako York. She's creative, and she knows how to play a jury."

"Goren would get him to confess in under sixty seconds," Logan said.

Ross quickly stated, "But he's on leave, and we're not going to drag him back just because we can't get a statement from a suspect we can convict without one."

Lorenzi started tapping his foot on the floor. Eames headed for the door.

"You sure you're all right with interrogating the man who tried to kill you?" Ross asked.

"I'm fine with it; I'm hoping he won't be." She smiled at him. "But if you're worried, you can chaperone."

He couldn't help but smile. "No, I think I can trust you."

Ross had his moments, Eames decided as she entered the interrogation room. "Hello again, Mr. Lorenzi."

His attorney rose out of her chair. "It's about time. We've been waiting in here for almost an hour."

Eames shrugged as she dropped her folder of photos on the table. "We weren't too worried about hurting the feelings of a killer."

"You can't prove my client killed anyone, and he has no intention of pleading guilty to it."

"How would you know? He hasn't said one word to you."

"My client is traumatized," Ms. York insisted, coming up with the idea as she said it. "He's been held here for hours with a severe injury that needs medical attention. I must insist his injury be treated and he be given sufficient time to heal before we continue with this interrogation."

Eames stared at her. "You can't be serious."

"You wouldn't want me to drop words like 'coerced confession,' 'medical neglect,' and 'police brutality' at the trial, would you?"

Deciding to ignore her, Eames sat down across from Lorenzi. She took out the victim's picture. "Mr. Lorenzi, we know someone hired you to kill this man. If you tell us who hired you..."

Kent rushed through the door. "Stop!" Eames looked up. "She's right," Kent said. "If his injuries are severe, anything we get from him now might not stand up in court. If he's in pain not treating him could be considered coercion."

Eames locked eyes with the suspect. "At least tell me his name," she asked, almost pleading.

Lorenzi looked up at his attorney, then back at her with a cruel smile. "I don't think I'll say anything. After all, I'm in so much pain, I'd tell you whatever you wanted to hear."

As he was led out of the room, Eames' shoulders slumped with disappointment.

Eames sat at her desk catching up on paperwork when her phone rang. She picked it up quickly, hoping it was Goren. "Eames."

"Detective Eames, it's Arcelia."

"Hello, Arcelia. What can I do for you?"

"Well, remember when you gave me your card you said to call you if I thought of anything. Well, I was picking up some of my daughter's things to take to the hospital for her - for when she wakes up - and I found an envelope. It had a picture inside with a date on the back: the date she waited all day for the phone call. I think it might have something to do with what happened to her."

"Do you have it with you? Where are you now?"

"I'm on the subway. I'm heading to the hospital. I do have it."

"I'll meet you there. Thank you."

When she arrived at the hospital, Arcelia was sitting at her daughter's bedside. She stood up when Eames entered and held out the envelope.

Eames put on gloves before taking it. There was no return address. It was postmarked from Mexico City. She took out the photo. In it, four men stood beside a square stone slab covered in carvings.

"It's Mayan," Arcelia explained. "Xochi is interested in this stuff. I didn't think anything of it until I read the date. I don't know if it will help you."

"It might. It might help a lot," Eames assured her. The size of the carved stone made it a perfect fit for the crate they were looking for.

Goren woke up to the sound of someone pounding on the door. He'd fallen asleep on the couch. A glance at the clock told him it was after two in the afternoon. He made sure it was Eames before opening the door; he wouldn't have let anyone else see him in his condition.

She pushed by him without even saying hello. "I found something," she said excitedly. "I think you'll like this."

He sat down beside her. He was still groggy, but her enthusiasm was contagious.

She produced a blown-up color copy of the photograph (the original was being processed for fingerprints, not that she expected they'd find anything useful). "Know what this is?"

"A Mayan stele. Where did you get this?"

"It was sent to Xochilt Ortiz, along with the date that she would be contacted."

"This could be what was in the crate."

"That's what I'm thinking. It wouldn't be the first time someone was killed over the illegal antiquities trade," she reminded him. "But we still don't know who sent it and how our victim was involved."

Goren picked up the picture to examine it more closely. Eames took a good look at him for the first time since she'd walked in, and she frowned with worry. He was tired, he hadn't shaved in days, and he was wearing the same clothes she'd last seen him in: he was depressed.

His voice interrupted her thoughts. "I know someone who might know more about this. My friend CJ Lockwood, a grad student in linguistics at Columbia."

"Another one of your friends," she commented wryly.

He smiled at her. "I can't promise this one won't hit on you, but you should have an interesting time."

"I'm up for anything if it will get this case solved."

He wrote down directions to his friend's office. "I'll call to let CJ know you're coming."

He walked her to the door. She paused to look up at him, and ran her hand over the spiky stubble on his cheek. "Take care of yourself," she said, making it sound like an order, not a platitude. He only nodded, and she wasn't sure she believed him.

Eames knocked on the office door of CJ Lockwood, and listened to movement on the other side. The door opened and she found herself face to face with a woman a few years younger than her, and a couple of inches taller, with the lithe body of an athlete. Her hair, the color of dark chocolate, hung in tight, chin-length ringlets. Her carmel skin was lightly freckled. She had large, intelligent hazel eyes behind small glasses.

"You're CJ Lockwood?"

"Cambria Jacinth Lockwood. I'm CJ on my academic papers to keep people guessing, but my professors and classmates call me Cambria, and my friends and family call me Jacinth. You can call me whatever you want."

"I'm Detective Alex Eames."

"Bobby's partner. He told me you were coming. Come in." She smiled pleasantly. "He was right: you are cute."

Eames took in the office. It was small to begin with, and bookshelves encroached on its meager space from every wall. The one window was partially blocked by books stacked on the windowsill. The color of the desk couldn't be discerned under the layers of papers and books.

CJ perched on her chair with her feet pulled up and her knees poking out beneath the armrests. She waited patiently as Eames looked around.

"I can see why my partner likes you," she said, taking a worn hardcover copy of The Secret History of the Mongols off the shelf, then replacing it in its slot between between a book called The Altaic Hypothesis and one written in Chinese. "How do you two know each other?"

"We met at a Scrabble party. I would have won, but I couldn't convince him 'kifed' was a word. Not a proud moment. Of course, I was just a freshman at the time. Since then, we've mostly kept in touch by e-mail. We forward each other interesting articles we find or things we learn. He's one of the few people outside the historical linguistics field who really appreciates the elucidating potential of toponymy. By the way," she added, "when he called to tell me you were coming, he didn't say why he wasn't coming with you. I asked and it sounded like he was avoiding the topic."

"He's not officially working this case. His mother recently passed away."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that." She was sincerely saddened, and didn't know what else to say.

Eames sat down and took out the photo, deciding it would be best to drop the subject. "My partner thinks you might be able to tell me something about this."

She brought a magnifying glass out of her desk and took a closer look at the stele. "Lakam Ha - Great Water - the city-state of Palenque. We've got a good angle on the date glyphs; given a few minutes I could tell you the exact day this stele was commissioned. Late eighth century, it looks like."

"How much would a stele like this sell for on the black market?"

"I'd say a few hundred thousand to a couple million dollars, for a private collection. I could call my friend at UNESCO. She'd know better than I do."

"Great. The only thing more useful than a friend of a friend is a friend of a friend of a friend," Eames joked.

"The computer lab is down the hall," CJ said. "We can scan this in and e-mail it to her. It's, what, about seven or eight p.m. in Paris right now?"

"Something like that," Eames guessed as she followed the younger woman out the door.

CJ made a call while walking to the computer lab. "Hi, it's CJ Lockwood. Are you at your computer? Great. I'm going to e-mail you something I'd like your take on." She hung up.

After scanning and e-mailing the picture, they went back to CJ's office where she set up her laptop with a webcam. A minute later, an elderly woman with short-cropped silver hair appeared on the screen. "Hello again, Ms. Lockwood," she said.

"Dr. Virtanen, this is Detective Alex Eames," she pulled Eames over to make sure she got into the webcam's field of vision. "She wants to know how much that stele would sell for on the black market."

The woman on the computer screen raised an eyebrow. "I do hope this is an academic question?"

"Actually, I believe this stele might already be on the black market, and I'm trying to find it," Eames informed her.

Dr. Virtanen nodded as she squinted at her computer screen. "This stele disappeared from a prospective excavation site outside Palenque three months ago. It's small in size, but in good condition. We believe it sold on internet auction for 1.5 million American dollars. Unfortunately, the Mexican government didn't have the resources to find it, not with valuable artifacts being stolen from under their noses every day."

"We think that someone stole it from whoever bought it. One man died. Can you think of anyone who would try to steal it?" She recalled what Goren had said about the item having emotional significance. "Maybe someone who wanted to return it to Mexico?"

She thought for a moment. "In recent years, an organization calling itself Alianza Liberación Cultural de Mexica has done protests and...uh, refused to by from people suspected to be trading antiquities out of Mexico. They say it is bleeding off their national soul. The ALCM makes some people suspicious that they are involved in illegal things. They are very secretive. There is no list for their members, but some of them get tattoos of Aztec or Mayan words."

"The dead man had a tattoo we couldn't identify," Eames said. She took out a photo of it and showed it to CJ.

"It's balaam," CJ announced. "The Mayan glyph for 'jaguar'."

"The people who stole the stele made a secret transfer in the middle of the night. We also found a message written in code we haven't figured out yet," Eames added.

"That does sound like the ALCM," Dr. Virtanen said. "I'll ask if I can get more information on them for you, but as I mentioned, very little is known about their organization."

CJ asked quietly, "May I see the code?" Eames dug out a copy of the list of numbers. CJ's eyes danced over them. "I'd like a copy of this." She smiled almost apologetically. "I'm a linguist; maybe I can find something your experts didn't."

"Do you have any idea who might have bought the stele?" Eames addressed the question to both CJ and Dr. Virtanen.

"There are hundreds of people suspected of buying antiquities illegally. I could send you a list, but it would probably be a waste of your time. We suspect whoever bought it was a first-timer. They overpaid," Dr. Virtanen said.

"There's a little museum, the Acker Museum of American History," CJ said hesitantly, "with a collection of Mayan artifacts. The curator told me some people offer him thousands of dollars for them. He may know what locals have both the means and desire to acquire a stele."

"I'd like to get in touch with him," Eames said.

"I can take you right now, if you have time."

She nodded, then looked into the webcam. "Thanks for your help, Dr. Virtanen."

"I only hope we can recover the stele. Good luck," she said, then signed off.

CJ sat in the passanger seat of Eames' car, giving directions to the museum. "Take a left at the next stop light, then go straight for a few blocks. It will be an old yellow building on the right."

They were quiet for a minute, then Eames asked, "Did Bobby really say I was cute?"

"Yes. It was a while ago, when I asked him about his job and what his partner was like."

"What else did he say about me?"

"That you were imperturbable, but then he corrected himself and said you were just 'unperturbed.' He really admires you."

They arrived at the museum.

"Busy place," Eames said sarcastically as they entered the building, which was so old it could have been a museum piece itself.

They were greeted by a fifty-something man at the front desk. "Miss Lockwood, I wasn't expecting you. Who's your friend?"

CJ smiled. "Mr. Blake, this is Alex Eames. Detective Eames, this is the museum's curator, Solon Blake."

"Detective Eames?" he asked. He sounded either impressed or scared. Perturbed, Eames thought.

"I'm investigating the theft of a Mayan artifact. Miss Lockwood thought you might have some idea who would want it."

He relaxed a little. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help you. While it's true that some people ask if they can purchase some of the artifacts in my museum, I always tell them it's impossible. I never get their contact information, and I have a terrible memory for names."

"Do you have any steles in your collection, Mr. Blake?"

"I'm afraid not. We have hundreds of uncataloged artifacts in the basement, but I think I would have noticed if we had a stele." He chuckled at his own joke.

"I'm sure having one wouldn't hurt business," Eames noted.

"Of course we would love to have one," Mr. Blake said quickly, "but as you point out, the museum business isn't exactly booming. Philanthropists are putting their money elsewhere these days. Frankly, our little operation here is on the verge of bankruptcy. Depending on how our profits go in the next few months, we may have to close next year. And then who knows what will happen to our artifacts."

Eames nodded, trying to look sympathetic. "Too bad. I know my partner would love this place."

"Are you interested in history, Detective Eames?" Mr. Blake inquired.

"Not much. To be honest, I can't understand what kind of big carved rock would be worth killing someone over."

Mr. Blake flinched. "Someone is dead? I thought you said you were investigating a theft."

"We believe the dead man was involved, but since we don't know who purchased the stele in the first place, it's hard to work out who stole from who."

"'Whom,'" Mr. Blake corrected her automatically. "The correct grammar is 'who stole from whom.'"

Her apologetic smile had a tinge of hostility. "Sorry. Grammar was never my best subject in school. The point is, whoever hired the killer - whom we have in custody - may be facing a murder charge. That's why I'd appreciate it if you're completely honest about what you know." She showed him John Doe's photo. "Have you ever seen this man before?"

He shook his head.

She brought out Carlos Lorenzi's mugshot. "What about this man."

Mr. Blake looked away from the photo quickly. "No. I wish I could help, but I don't know a single thing about any of this. I'll most certainly let the police know if I hear anything."

"I'm sure you will."

By the time Eames and CJ left the museum, it was raining.

"That was kind of odd," CJ said. "Mr. Blake was acting...suspicious."

"Mmhm," Eames agreed distractedly. She was trying to think of a way to get a warrant for the museum's financial records. She was fairly sure an investigation would reveal at least $1.5 million missing. She was also sure Solon Blake hadn't known about the murder. "I appreciate your help. It's been invaluable. Would you like me to drop you off at the university?"

"Sure." She hesitated, then asked, "I don't suppose you'd be interested in dinner?"

Eames couldn't help but smile, "Thanks, but..."

"I thought not," she sighed.

Eames went to Goren's apartment after work. She wanted to check on him, and tell him about the breakthrough. But he wasn't answering his door.

"Bobby?" she called. She took out her spare key and went inside. She was worried that she'd find him: a personal tragedy and a gun were not a good combination.

The apartment was empty.