Shared Obsession Chapter 153
"Detective, Mr. Castle, this is Rupert Bentley, our co-financier…."
"Pleasure," Rupert interrupts.
"Of the expedition," Raynes finishes.
Castle raises an eyebrow at Rupert. "I'm sorry. Did you say 'curse?"'
"Tell them, Stanford!" Rupert demands. "Tell them what was written at the entrance to the burial chamber. 'All who gaze on the face of the Mayan king shall be struck down by his wrath.'"
"Mayan king?" Castle points toward the sarcophagus. "That Mayan king?"
Rupert draws himself up. "That very one. They all looked inside and they're all dead."
"There were other incidents?" Kate asks.
Raynes rolls his eyes. "All easily explainable. One of our grad students, Nicole Graham was mauled to death outside the dig site."
"And Professor Fisher died of Dengue fever," Rachel adds.
"Isn't there a shot for that?" Castle asks.
"Still under development," Raynes replies. "And Dengue fever is common in that region, as are curses written over grave sites. It's how they kept their people from robbing them for thousands of years."
"I can assure you, Mr. Bentley," Kate says, "that whatever killed Mr. Medina was quite human. Do any of you know if he had any enemies?"
"Will was passionate," Raynes declares. "Nothing could stop him from getting what he wanted. It's what made him such a great archaeologist. It also rubbed some people the wrong way."
"Rubbed who the wrong way?" Kate questions.
"The indigenous Mayans he worked with claimed that he tricked them into revealing the location of the burial site. He'd received death threats," Raynes adds.
"And how do you know that?" Beckett queries.
"I'd received one too." Raynes pulls a piece of paper covered with symbols out of his jacket pocket. "It's written in ancient Mayan."
Kate studies the note. "That's just like one we found in Medina's apartment."
"What does it say?" Castle asks.
"Death awaits the robber of graves," Raynes translates.
"That's from some pissed-off Mayan," Castle says. "Maybe pissed-off enough to kill."
"Ok, thanks," Kate says into the receiver of her landline. As she hangs up, she looks across her desk at Castle. "That was the lab. Excluding Medina and Raynes, they didn't find any fingerprints on either of the death threats, which means all we've got to go on is the postmark."
"So we're looking for a murderous Mayan who mailed a death threat from Spanish Harlem three days ago. How tough can that be?" Castle wonders.
Kate takes a sip from her mug. "While you were making coffee I called the Mexican Embassy and asked them to put out feelers to the indigenous community. You never know. We might get a decent tip."
"I've been reading up on this guy Medina," Castle says.
"When?" Kate asks.
"While you were in the ladies' room. Anyway, he walked into the Amazon with nothing but a backpack and some satellite images. He walked out a month later with the golden head of Yax Pac. This guy really was like Indiana Jones, except without a writer to ensure he made it to the final credits. And he also had some space-age technology, which might make for a better movie. I wonder if the production team putting out Heat Wave would be interested."
"Hey, Beckett," Ryan calls, coming off the elevator. "No luck with the mysterious C.T."
"Eight people work out of 1127 Avenue of the Americas," Esposito explains. "None of 'em have heard of Medina."
"And there's a coffee shop on the ground floor of the building," Ryan continues. "Maybe Medina met C.T. there, but none of the servers recognized Medina's photograph."
"Anything on the girlfriend?" Esposito inquires.
Kate shakes her head. "No one from the museum can verify that Medina even had a girlfriend. And the second set of prints CSU found at his apartment doesn't match anything in the system. So far, this case is nothing but dead ends."
"Mm. You know why?" Ryan asks.
"Because Castle's cursed," Esposito proclaims.
Castle gestures toward the murder board. "You guys can't believe the statement we got from Rupert Bentley. The guy's living in Mayan la-la land. You gentleman will be happy to know that I don't put any stock in curses."
Esposito leans on Beckett's desk. "Seriously, Bro. I saw a special on TV. Bunch of guys found King Tut's tomb ended up dying under weird circumstances."
Castle sighs. "I'm familiar with the story. But the truth is that tests show toxins were released when they opened the sarcophagus."
"Didn't you open Kan-Xul's sarcophagus?" Ryan asks.
"Yes, but it had been opened before. Rachel Walters worked with the mummy and she's very much alive." Castle coughs. "All that happened was I got a face full of dust."
"Ashes to ashes dust to dust," Ryan solemnly intones.
The wheels on Kate's chair squeak as she pushes to her feet. "Enough, guys. Go check with Lanie. See if she's got anything. You feeling OK, Babe?" she asks as the boys walk off.
Castle coughs again. "Fine. It was just dust. You should see me after I visit one of the old books stores on Canal Street."
Kate cups his cheek. "I have. You grin like a pumpkin."
"I also sneeze black until I get the buildup of decades out of my system. Dust as ancient as Kan-Xul is bound to be worse. I just need some fresh air. I'm going to take a walk."
"I'd keep you company, but word might come in from the embassy, and protocols would have them call Montgomery. I'll need to be here."
"Death, taxes, and bureaucracy, the three inevitables. But it's OK. I'm working through a possible plotline in my head, anyway. Maybe I'll embed Rook with an archaeological expedition."
"Sounds like it could be fun."
"Yeah. See you later."
Lanie holds up a broken cell phone. "Medina's. It was in his jacket pocket."
"I doubt gargoyle attack is covered under his warranty," Esposito says. "Get it? Phone? Warranty?"
"Don't quit your day job, Bro," Ryan advises. "I'll have Tech pull the SIM card."
"Speaking of gargoyles, we found trace amounts of a substance by the chisel markings," Lanie announces. "It was probably on the killer's clothes and transferred to the statue when he pushed it over."
"What is it?" Esposito asks.
"Good question," Lanie responds. "The lab says they've never seen anything like it. It's a mixture of organic compounds, mostly trace amounts of pollen."
"Medina's apartment's not far from the park," Ryan notes. "Maybe our killer cut through there on the way to do the deed."
"Nice idea," Lanie acknowledges, "but the pollen is from a kind of calabash that only grows in the lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula."
"Where the dig site was," Esposito realizes.
"Oh, it gets better," Lanie goes on. "We found the same pollen on both death threats. There's a good chance whoever sent them is your killer. And it's unlikely he'd still have traces of pollen on him unless he'd been in the Yucatan in the past few days."
"Yes, I'll hold," Kate says resignedly into the speaker of her desk phone.
No longer coughing, Castle fidgets in front of her desk. "Why is this taking so long? How many Mayans from the Yucatan lowlands have flown into the city in the last few days?"
Kate's fingers tap against a file. "TSA computers are down."
"Oh well, that's reassuring," Castle comments drily.
Ryan holds up a book. "You know, Castle, this Kan-Xul was no joke." He points to an illustration. "He conducted hundreds of sacrifices."
"You know why that burial chamber was so hard to find, right?" Esposito chimes in. "His own people buried it so deep so he couldn't come back from the grave and get them."
"Another TV special, Sito?" Castle questions. "Scary mummy stories get good ratings but don't exactly chalk up points for reliability." He drops into his chair which crashes to the ground. A burst of laughter from the detective partners is immediately silenced by Kate's withering glare.
A/N The first vaccine for Dengue fever was licensed in 2018 and the FDA approved one in 2019. This episode predated that.
