The Girl in the Mayan Tomb Page 5

  Kotler sat in the passenger seat of Denzel's FBI-issued sedan as they passed through the city blocks, on their way to Midtown and the theater district. It was quiet, and Kotler wasn't quite sure how to break the silence without sounding like an imbecile.

  “So,” Denzel said.

  Neither, apparently, was Denzel.

  “So,” Kotler agreed.

  “You've been working on those artifacts from Gail McCarthy?”

  Kotler nodded. “For weeks. I haven't turned up much.”

  “We didn't get anything useful off of forensics, either,” Denzel said.

  “It's possible she's just using them to run us in circles,” Kotler replied.

  Denzel looked side-glance at him. “You believe that?”

  Kotler chuckled and shook his head. “No. I think she was being sincere, when she told me that if I could solve it, I'd find her. It means there's more to it than simply sussing out the meaning of the three objects, I think. She doesn't expect that I'll be able to solve it right away.”

  “So she's still playing games,” Denzel said.

  “Masterfully,” Kotler smiled, though part of him was broiling over Gail McCarthy's “games.” Which, as Kotler thought of it, was exactly why he needed to distance himself from those artifacts, for the moment. He needed a new mystery to investigate. A new story to discover. Maggie Hamilton's presence in a Mayan tomb should do the trick, he imagined.

  They arrived in Midtown, and turned off of Broadway, traveling less than two blocks to a small, indistinct brown-brick building wedged amid others of its kind. A sign adorned the front of the building, reading simply DeFranco, in a flourished script. The etched glass of the front door elaborated on the simplicity of the sign. Musical & Dramatic Productions.

  This, clearly, was the place.

  They entered the building and were greeted by a bustle of performers, moving from the lobby and through a set of double stage doors. As the doors swung closed, Kotler noted the words QUIET: REHEARSAL AREA stenciled in black. This would be where DeFranco held auditions and rehearsals, preparing his performers for whatever he had in production, Kotler assumed.

  “Can I help you?” a woman asked, stepping out of a curtained doorway to one side of the rehearsal space. She was carrying a clipboard, and was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair pulled into a ponytail.

  Denzel took his badge from the inner pocket of his coat. Kotler didn't bother with his consultant ID—he had remembered to bring it, at least, but still wasn't used to brandishing it whenever he entered a room.

  “I'm Agent Denzel, with the FBI. This is Dr. Kotler, a consultant to the Bureau. We're looking for Leonard DeFranco.”

  She nodded, and pointed back through the curtain, from where she'd emerged. “He's in his office. Go through there, and it's the last door on the left.”

  Denzel thanked her, and he and Kotler pushed through the curtain and into the inner offices of the DeFranco building. They knocked on DeFranco's door, and a voice from within told them to enter.

  “Leonard DeFranco?” Denzel asked, again displaying his badge.

  The man, seated at an oak desk, stood to greet them. Behind him, a large window presented a full view of the rehearsal space, which was filled with theater-style seating, angled toward a large and well-lit stage below. The cast that had been in motion when Kotler and Denzel arrived were lined up on stage, and the sound of several voices and instruments, all warming up, could be heard from a set of speakers to either side of the window. Mr. DeFranco reached out and turned down the speakers using a volume control mounted to the window's frame.

  “How can I help you?” DeFranco asked, looking dubious.

  Denzel introduced himself and Kotler. “We'd like to ask you some questions about Margaret Hamilton.”

  DeFranco's expression became pained, and he slumped back into his chair, waving to two more seats in front of his desk. Denzel and Kotler both sat, and Denzel took out his notebook and a pen.

  “I haven't had anyone ask about Maggie in years,” DeFranco said. “I thought this was all finally behind me. I've already told the police and the FBI everything I know, so I don't know what else I can add, five years on.”

  “There have been new developments,” Denzel said.

  “What kind of developments?” DeFranco asked.

  Denzel shook his head. “I'm afraid I can't give specifics in an ongoing investigation … other than, we've located Ms. Hamilton's remains.”

  Kotler watched DeFranco's expression, measuring it, reading it. The producer's eyes widened slightly, and his breath quickened. There was a slight flush to his face, as well. Genuine surprise, and genuine emotion, as far as Kotler could determine.

  “So she really is dead,” DeFranco said, quietly. “I half hoped she had run away somewhere.”

  “Why would she do that?” Kotler asked, abruptly.

  DeFranco looked at him. “She had quite a bit of success, but it wasn't always … it wasn't always fun for her.”

  “Was she unhappy?” Denzel asked.

  DeFranco nodded. “Yes. But I think the better term might be ‘bored.' She had a career on stage from the age of six, and had achieved quite a bit. Awards. Accolades. But theater life can be as hard or harder on those who succeed, as for those who toil in obscurity.”

  Denzel was making a note, and asked, “How was your relationship with Ms. Hamilton? How long had the two of you been together, when she disappeared?”

  DeFranco shook his head, but smiled lightly. “We had a wonderful relationship, really. We started dating when she was 19 and I was 29. Oh, I know,” DeFranco said, waving off an imaginary protest. “Robbing the cradle. That's what everyone wrote about me then, and it only got worse when she disappeared. That didn't give Maggie much credit, however. She was a very mature, very intelligent woman. We enjoyed each other's company. It was just … the breakup. It made headlines, and the sharks in the media smelled blood.”

  “Whose idea was it to break up?” Kotler asked.

  DeFranco sighed. “Hers. She'd started getting bad reviews, but they focused more on her relationship with me than on her performance. She didn't like the implication from the press that she somehow owed her career to sleeping with me. I tried to convince her that it didn't matter, that she was a success regardless, and had been since long before we were together. It wasn't enough.”

  Kotler nodded. “That sort of thing puts a lot of pressure on a relationship,” he said.

  DeFranco sighed. He then looked at them, his expression hardening. “Again, I've gone through all of this with the police, in the past. Numerous times. I had nothing to do with … with Maggie's death,” he choked these last words, and despite there being real emotion in his voice, Kotler immediately picked up on a performance. Not a particularly good one, either. But Kotler knew the reason behind it. DeFranco was using his craft as a defense mechanism, trying to persuade Denzel to believe that he was sincere when he said he was innocent. It was harmless, though ironically the insincerity of it might have been read by law enforcement and the media as a reason to be suspicious. It was possible DeFranco had punched a hole in his own boat, with his reflexive reliance on acting, to provide a buffer against the harsh judgment of the outside world.

  “Mr. DeFranco,” Denzel said, “Have you ever heard the words ‘Ah-Choo?'”

  DeFranco was perplexed. “As in a sneeze?”

  Kotler, stifling a smile, said, “I believe my partner means to say ‘Ah-Puch.'”

  Denzel's face blushed slightly, and he replied, “Yes, that's it. Ah-Puch. I apologize.”

  DeFranco shook his head. “It doesn't sound familiar, no,” he said.

  Denzel noted this. “What about Central America? Did Ms. Hamilton ever talk to you about wanting to go there? Maybe planning a vacation?”

  DeFranco thought about this. “She never really mentioned wanting to travel there, per se, but she did take a sudden interest in the music and artwork from the Yucatán. It was after our breakup. She was
working on something, some secret project, with Mick Scalera. He's another producer. Started as a musician, and wrote an off-Broadway production that did well. It caught Maggie's attention, at least. I never got full details, but I assumed she was writing a production with him. She'd talked about producing something of her own, for years.”

  “Do you have any contact information for Mr. Scalera?” Denzel asked.

  “I can have my assistant track it down,” DeFranco said. He was thoughtful for a moment, and said, “Agent Denzel, I know you can't tell me much about your investigation. But please, if you can, will you keep me updated on what happened to Maggie? It's been so long. I've lived with the questions about this, and the suspicions from the police and the media. I promise you, I had nothing to do with her death. I just … I've wondered, for so long, what really happened to her.”

  Kotler glanced at Denzel, who nodded, made one last quick note, and closed his notebook, replacing it in his coat pocket. “I'll do all I can, Mr. DeFranco.”

  DeFranco smiled, and Kotler could read there an expression of genuine relief. In all these years, DeFranco had been adamant that he'd had nothing to do with Maggie's disappearance. Few believed him. It had to be a great source of pain in his life, knowing he was innocent, never being able to prove it, all the while lamenting and grieving over his lost love.

  Kotler knew that he was making several large assumptions about DeFranco, which could be dangerous. He also knew that regardless of how sincere DeFranco seemed, he could be lying, or at least covering part of the truth. Denzel wouldn't just write him off as a suspect, of course. Until this investigation had run its course, DeFranco was as much a person of interest as anyone.

  But watching Denzel, Kotler knew that he, too, had been persuaded. At least a bit.

  They left DeFranco's office half an hour later, having gotten as many details as they could, regarding Maggie Hamilton's disappearance five years earlier, and having retrieved contact information for Mick Scalera. As they climbed back into the sedan and drove away from the DeFranco building, Kotler asked, “What did you think? Of DeFranco's story?”

  Denzel considered this. “He seemed sincere enough,” he replied. “And he gave us another lead, at least.”

  “Do you believe him?” Kotler asked.

  “Do you?” Denzel replied.

  Kotler nodded. “I do. I'm not ready to rule him out entirely, of course. But yes, I believe him.”

  “Must be a hell of a thing,” Denzel said, quietly. “Five years of everyone thinking you did something horrible, and no way to prove you didn't. Even with the investigation going quiet, you know it has to haunt him.”

  “All the more because he never knew what happened to her,” Kotler said. “He's spent all this time wondering, all while being a suspect, being hounded by the media.”

  “Well, now he knows,” Denzel said.

  “Now he knows,” Kotler agreed.

  “We'll check into Mr. Scalera next,” Denzel said.

  Kotler glanced at his partner. “And when do we leave for Xi'paal ‘ek Kaah?” Kotler asked, already grinning.

  “What makes you think we're going there at all?” Denzel asked.

  Kotler rolled his eyes. “Come now, Roland,” he said. “There would be no point in me being here, if we weren't going to the hidden Mayan city in the middle of a contested part of Central America. Honestly.”

  Denzel said nothing, but Kotler did notice a barely stifled smile.

  Chapter 4

  Mick Scalera's operation was nowhere near as refined as DeFranco's. For starters, he didn't have his own building. He operated from a rented space in the basement of a dance studio, several blocks from Broadway. Denzel and Kotler had entered via a set of stairs that descended from street level.

  The space was dark, lit mostly by strings of white Christmas lights hanging from the beams overhead. It was also small, with barely enough room for a tiny stage and a dozen or so chairs, as well as a beat up old piano in one corner.

  Scalera, himself, fit the scene perfectly. He wore torn jeans and a clean but ancient-looking T-shirt. He looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties, with long and unruly hair and a few days of beard growth.

  He must have been very young, Kotler thought, when he was working with Maggie Hamilton. Maybe 19 or 20 at the most. Kotler might have thought of him as a prodigy, having had an off-Broadway hit at such a young age—if not for the fact that he appeared to be at the same level in his career as he'd been in five years ago. It was hard to imagine Scalera any other way than as he appeared right now. He might well have been a prodigy, but he had the air of one who had squandered his potential in favor of preserving the integrity of his art.

  “You found her?” Scalera asked, after badges were shown and introductions were made.

  “We found her remains,” Denzel replied.

  Scalera looked from Denzel to Kotler, and back again. “I can't believe she's dead,” he said, shaking his head. “I mean, I knew she was dead. I knew DeFranco killed her. I mean, it was all over the news.”

  “We haven't yet determined who killed her,” Denzel said, glossing over the fact that she may not have been murdered at all. The details of Maggie's death would be horrifying, but they were also part of the investigation. It was best to keep details close, to see what emerged without prompting.

  “We'd like to ask you a few questions,” Denzel continued. “At the time of her disappearance, the two of you were working on something together?”

  Scalera laughed. “Yeah, something,” he said. “Everything, actually.”

  “Can you tell us what it was?” Kotler asked.

  Scalera shrugged. “She wanted to produce a musical all her own,” he said. “And she came to the hottest new commodity in town to help her do it.” With this last, he spread his arms wide, like a circus showman, grinning. He dropped both the grin and his arms suddenly, however, and sat down on the bench in front of his piano. He shuffled around among some empty beer bottles and wads of discarded composition paper, fishing a yellow pack of American Spirit cigarettes from the debris. He tapped one out of the pack, and lit it with a plastic disposable lighter. As if realizing he'd neglected his guests, he held the pack out to them, offering. Both Denzel and Kotler declined.

  “We worked on it for months,” Scalera said, exhaling a plume of smoke through his nose as he spoke. “Most of a year. Then she disappeared, and everything went with her.”

  “The production was never finished, I take it?” Kotler asked.

  Scalera laughed. “Oh, it was finished. Almost from the minute it started. Maggie had a lot of big ideas, and wanted to do something new and bright and colorful. But she didn't really have … I don't know … talent?”

  “Wasn't she a Tony-winning performer?” Kotler asked.

  “Sure,” Scalera replied, waving this off as if Kotler had brought up her performance in a high school musical. “But that was for her work on stage, with writers and producers and directors behind the scenes, making sure she looked good. Off stage, she was a hack. She couldn't write dialogue. She really couldn't write lyrics. She definitely could not write music, which was why she came to me. Everything she was doing was absurd.”

  “Pretty harsh assessment,” Denzel said. “Did the two of you have any problems with each other? Exchange any angry words?”

  Scalera laughed. “I know what you're getting at, but no. We were cool. I mean … we were cool.”

  “You were sleeping together?” Kotler asked.

  Scalera nodded, smoke once again pouring from his nostrils in twin contrails. “It was pretty casual. But we started seeing each other a month or two before she broke it off with DeFranco.”

  “She was cheating on DeFranco?” Denzel asked.

  Scalera nodded.

  “Did he know about that?”

  Scalera shrugged. “If he did, it never came up. He's pretty self-involved.”

  Denzel scribbled something about this in his notebook.

  Kotler
looked around the space, taking it in. Despite its meagerness, Kotler could see that great care had been taken with the staging and organization of the place. Scalera's work area—primarily the piano and the floor beside it—was cluttered with the refuse and debris of creative work, but this could be easily scooped into a waste basket, prior to having people in for the test of a show or a musical number. The stage, the seating, the walls and ceiling of the place, all showed thoughtfulness and attention to detail.

  Scalera appeared to be a slacker, but he cared about his work. Kotler suspected it might be the only thing he cared about.

  “You weren't happy about what Maggie was producing?” Kotler asked.

  Scalera took a drag from his cigarette, shaking his head. “It was garbage.”

  “But you kept at it,” Kotler said. “For most of a year.”

  Scalera regarded Kotler for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. It was pretty much my only project that year. My show had closed. I had a few people hinting that they might want to pick me up, to have me produce something for one company or another. But Maggie gave me a lot of money up front, and made me a partner in the production.”

  “Full partner?” Kotler asked.

  Again, Scalera looked at Kotler, as if trying to figure the game. “No,” he admitted. “Not a full partner.”

  “How much of the show did you own?” Kotler asked.

  Scalera ground his cigarette into the concrete floor, and dropped the butt into an empty beer bottle. “Thirty points,” he said.

  “Thirty percent?” Kotler asked. “That isn't much of a partnership.”

  “It was supposed to be a third of the show, ok?” Scalera said, irritation in his voice and his features. “She said she was selling another third of the show to an investor. Or, really, less than a third. She planned to keep 40 percent, to maintain control. At the time, I didn't see much of a problem with that. She gave me a lot of money up front, man.”

  “How much money?” Denzel asked.

  “Ninety-thousand,” Scalera replied.

  “Maggie gave you ninety-thousand dollars, and a third of her production,” Kotler said. “And then she disappeared?”