Sanskrit Cipher: A Marina Alexander Adventure Read online

  Nor did she need any more coffee—she was wired so tight that when some jittery old guy down the way dropped a spoon onto his saucer, Jill nearly shot out of her seat.

  What she really needed, she told herself, was to do a little bit of yoga stretching and maybe some meditation—both of which she’d been working on over the last few months as ways to control and ease her anxiety.

  Her yoga teacher kept telling Jill to focus on her Third Chakra—apparently that was the center of energy located in her belly, and it was related to anxiety and stress—and hers was often blocked or wasn’t spinning freely…whatever that meant.

  There were, the yoga teacher had told Jill earnestly, seven main centers of energy in the human body—called chakras, a Sanskrit word—running all the way up the spine starting from the root of the spinal cord up to the crown of the head. Each one had its so-called specialties or focus on types of energy, and if one of them was clogged or blocked, it could cause an unbalanced feeling.

  The Seventh Chakra, which was located at the very top and center of the head, was the one that fascinated Jill the most. It was the energy center that represented what her teacher called the Universal Consciousness—the fact that everyone through all times and spaces were somehow connected through their souls. She wasn’t sure she actually believed it, but in a way, it made sense. She did believe in a higher connection, and in some sort of afterlife…so it could be true.

  But Jill seemed to be stuck on getting her Third Chakra to spin properly; she was nowhere near ready to focus on that seventh and highest center of energy. And so she tried to do extra yoga poses and breathing exercises that focused on the solar plexus chakra, which apparently also responded to the color yellow. So she had a lot of lemon in her tea, and ate a lot of summer squash and yellow peppers. She even bought a sunny goldenrod-colored candle and burned it in her office when she felt stressed.

  But yoga stretching and meditation were not about to happen here at Pete’s All-Niter. Jill’s meeting place with Eli Sanchez was the epitome of classic diner environment: a long counter with round stools upholstered in worn black vinyl on thick columns of stainless steel. A revolving pie server, carefully protected by its plastic cover, offered six different flavors. The strong smells of coffee and fried foods, along with the lingering, permanent odor of now-banned cigarettes, filled the air. Handwritten specials menus with spelling errors and misplaced apostrophes hung on two different walls. Booths of worn crimson vinyl lined the windows. And there was a single, jaundiced (both literally and figuratively, for she had a yellowish cast to her well-lined skin that implied many decades of tobacco use) waitress who didn’t bother to write down any orders and unceremoniously plopped the plates on the table in front of each respective diner. She never seemed to get anything wrong—or, at least, no one dared complain if she did.

  The other occupants of Pete’s were also of the type one would expect to find in such a place after midnight on a Wednesday two grizzled and ball-capped truckers who appeared to know each other, although they sat four stools apart at the counter while they discussed the semitruck accident in graphic detail. The old, disheveled man was stirring his coffee with a shaking hand that dropped the spoon and startled Jill. He was wearing a heavy plaid shirt, though it was July and seventy-nine degrees outside.

  There was another man who looked altogether too disreputable and a little scary for Jill’s taste, with his furtive, dark eyes that bounced around the restaurant. But he’d already been sitting there when she came in, so it was impossible for him to be the man who’d tried to break into her townhouse.

  Unless he’d somehow overheard her conversation with Sanchez and managed to get her before her…but what was he going to do to her anyway, here under the bright, obnoxious lights of the diner? That was why she’d picked Pete’s All-Niter: there were windows everywhere and it was well lit.

  Besides, there were two cops sitting in a booth on the opposite side of the restaurant. One of them was facing her, so Jill felt quite safe.

  The piece of cherry pie she’d ordered was long gone from the classic white diner plate and now churned unpleasantly in her stomach, along with the two scoops of ice cream she’d had with it. The swishing and twisting inside was getting so ugly that she thought she better go to the bathroom…just in case. Too much sugar, caffeine, and stress were not a good combination.

  She rose, deciding to leave her coat draped over the booth in case Dr. Sanchez arrived while she was gone. She’d already told him she was wearing a bright yellow raincoat so he’d be able to identify her—though she hadn’t expected to be the only woman in the place except the waitress and one of the cops.

  Jill’s phone was in her oversized purse, which she hugged close to her body as she slid from the booth. Her stomach felt like a clothes dryer, tumbling in an ugly, incessant circular motion that did not bode well. She had an iffy digestive system on a good day, and this was decidedly not a good day.

  As she walked quickly to the short hallway where the restrooms were, Jill saw a pair of headlights pull into the parking lot as she passed the window and glanced out to see whether it was Dr. Sanchez.

  The man who got out of the car was dark-haired like the professor, but she couldn’t see his face to tell whether it was the insect guru. But Jill couldn’t wait to find out—things were getting quite desperate in her nether regions, and she trotted quickly into the ladies’ room.

  It was a two-stall deal with a small sink area, which meant she didn’t feel the need to hurry too much, since she wasn’t hogging the whole bathroom. But, oh, she felt really sick, and she bolted into the nearest stall.

  She made it just in time.

  Ten minutes later—and feeling worlds better—she was just coming out of the stall when the door to the bathroom opened.

  She saw the man coming in and had a moment of shock—had she run into the wrong bathroom? How mortifying!—then in an instant she realized there were no urinals, and just as she was about to inform him he was in the wrong place, he stepped deliberately toward her.

  Jill managed a strangled scream a millisecond before his hand covered her mouth. Something sharp pricked her through her shirt, and all at once, she went woozy…then slack…then dark.

  She didn’t feel the cold, sticky floor when she landed on it, and she certainly didn’t feel him yank the purse off her arm.

  Twenty-Three

  Pam Budd had been working at Pete’s All-Niter for over forty years. She’d even been married to Pete for ten of them before they decided they were better coworkers than spouses—although they did burn up the sheets pretty good back in the day.

  They still did on occasion, because why not?

  Pam generally knew every type of customer that came in on the overnight shift—which was the one she worked because she preferred it that way. It was just busy enough to keep her from getting bored, but not so busy she couldn’t slip out back for a cigarette every fifteen minutes or so.

  Damned antismoking laws had really put a cramp in her style, because until they came around, she could just keep the last booth on the opposite side from the johns for her “break” area and even let her ciggie sit there waiting in the ashtray for a quick puff between delivering orders. It used to be much more efficient, juggling food, customers, and her nicotine habit.

  Now she had to go all the way outside to light up, and that was a real pain in the ass when it was zero degrees or storming out there.

  Government interference in her personal life burned her butt.

  Even though Pam was used to the types of customers who came in between midnight and four a.m., every now and again she was surprised by the unexpected.

  Tonight was one of those nights, when the fortyish woman in a yellow raincoat came slinking in, looking like she was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. She was hunched over all expectant-like, waiting for some hammer to come down on her head of mousy brown curls or something. She clutched a big purse to her side and carried a small cardboard box
like it was filled with jewels or something equally valuable.

  Now, Pam had seen women come in who were definitely on the run from someone—usually a husband—and waiting for the bus to pull into the station next door, and though this gal looked like she was pretty worked up, it just didn’t feel like the same sort of anxiousness as someone trying to get away from an asshole husband. Plus, there was that little cardboard box she was clutching—not a suitcase, which was what most of them carried—but a scrappy little box. Couldn’t even fit a loaf of bread in it.

  Pam, who watched a lot of late-night movies and crime shows (hazard of the job), entertained herself with thoughts about what the box might contain. The most intriguing option was that it held a severed finger the woman was delivering to someone for some reason. She sniffed a little when she got close to take the woman’s order, figuring if it was a severed finger, she’d smell blood or rotting flesh—or maybe formaldehyde.

  But all she smelled was the woman’s perfume, which wasn’t unpleasant, but it was combined with a tinge of body odor—and the mixture was rolling from the woman’s pores like steam.

  The woman in the yellow raincoat was definitely worried about something—but she couldn’t have been too worried when she ordered cherry pie and actually ate all of it, plus the ice cream (two scoops of strawberry), and drank two cups of coffee. Anyone that scared shouldn’t have had such an appetite, so maybe she wasn’t delivering a severed finger.

  Maybe it was a drug deal—which Pam liked the idea of, because, after all, Officers Parente and Didik were sitting right in the booth over there, and it would be one hell of a ballsy move for this woman to pull off a drug deal right under their noses.

  Pam was just refilling Officer Didik’s coffee when she noticed the woman’s face turning decidedly pale. Sickly pale. Pam Budd had been around long enough to recognize churning guts when she saw them.

  “Better get the mop,” she told herself, watching as the woman made a dash for the bathroom. “She might not make it.”

  Pam went outside for a smoke first, though (no reason to rush), and when she came back in, Biggie Jones called her over to the counter to refill his coffee, and they got to talking with Wayne Muir about the bad trucking accident that was all over the news.

  “And there was another one real simular,” said Biggie, “down’n Kentucky way. Man, that’s some bad juju happening out there. Glad I’m not on the road right now.”

  “Tellin’ me. I heard Bill Nodd on the radio talking about how it was a friend of his got smashed up ’ere down on I-71. They were s’posed to meet up tonight for dinner. Guy never made it cuz he’s like butter on toast, spread all over the road,” said Wayne, giving a little shudder. He prodded his empty coffee cup toward Pam. “Couldn’t pay me to drive through Ohio.”

  “What’s wrong with Ohio?” demanded Biggie. “They got the Buckeyes!”

  “It’s flat as a bra-less granny, and only fifty-five miles per hour’s what’s wrong with Ohio,” said Wayne as Pam gave a gravelly chuckle.

  Just then a man came in, looking around like he expected to see Santa Claus or someone exciting like that.

  “Take a seat anywhere,” Pam said, still leaning on the counter as she checked out the newcomer.

  Looked to be under forty, and not a tragedy to look at. Brown skin (a little dark for Pam’s personal taste), chocolate-brown hair pulled into a short ponytail that reminded her of that Antonio Banderas in one of those Mexican drug lord movies. He had a goatee that was getting a little gray at the corners of the mouth, but Pam acknowledged at least it was trimmed up nice. The guy wore a soft, clinging t-shirt of dark green with something on the front she couldn’t identify—looked like a bug or something?—and nice, broken-in jeans.

  He was still standing there, looking around anxiously. “Was there a woman here, with a yellow coat?” he asked, coming over to the counter.

  Well, she hadn’t expected that. Those two?

  Gotta be a drug deal.

  Or…maybe a custody switch? The kids were sleeping in the car and had to go with Dad (or Mom) for the weekend?

  “Yeah, she’s sitting right over there—where the yellow coat is— Oh, it’s gone. She must have left.” Pam hadn’t noticed the woman come back after her dash to the restroom, but she had seen the yellow coat hanging over the booth when she was in the john.

  So much for a custody switch.

  Pam went back to the drug deal story because she liked it best. Maybe she oughta try writing one of them thriller books.

  “Are you sure she’s gone?” The guy was looking around, and now he looked anxious—but in a different way. Not scared like the lady with the coat, but concerned in a sort of protective way.

  Maybe he was supposed to be the recipient of the severed finger, Pam chortled to herself. “Looks to me like she’s gone now.”

  “Her car’s still out there,” said the guy, still looking around. His attention seemed to linger on the two officers as if he were considering involving them.

  Now Pam had walked close enough that she could see what was on the front of his shirt, and she very nearly spat out a laugh. It was two cicadas humping each other, right there, plain as day on his shirt. Geez.

  “Well, last I seen her, she was going to the bathroom. Guess I could check and make sure she’s all right in there.” Pam was really hoping the yellow raincoat lady was still in the john, because now she was dying to see what the heck was going on with these two mismatched people.

  The guy with the bug porn on his shirt lingered there looking tense as Pam strode down the short hall. She pushed on the ladies’ room door and it didn’t open all the way.

  It took her about two seconds to realize why: for the second time in forty years, there was a body on the floor of the john.

  Oh, for Pete’s sake. Why did this shit have to happen on her shift?

  “You all right, miss?” Pam said, pushing a little harder. Maybe the lady was just feeling sick.

  But all at once, the bug porn guy was right there just as she got the door open. He pushed his way past her right into the ladies’ room and knelt beside the crumpled body. The interior of the bathroom smelled like crap, literally, and Pam was happy to keep the door open to air it out. Sheesh.

  “She’s dead,” said Bug Porn Guy, looking up at Pam.

  “Man, I thought she looked sick, but I didn’t think she was that sick. Hey, Officer Parente! We got a problem back here!” Pam shouted.

  She saw no reason to be circumspect; the three other people in the place were going to know about the body in ten seconds flat anyway.

  The bug porn guy, who’d obviously been trying to meet up with the dead woman, crossed himself like he’d been praying, then rose to his feet as the officers slid out of their booth.

  “Did she have a bag or anything?” the bug guy asked.

  It was a damned good thing Pam was observant.

  Hell, she could’ve given Columbo or Adrian Monk or freaking Sherlock Holmes a run for the money, with her powers of observation. Forty years waiting tables—you learned how to notice stuff, you know?

  “She had a purse. And a small cardboard box.” Pam was still hoping to find out what had been inside. “And I don’t see her coat anywhere.” She frowned. It had been draped over the booth—she definitely had seen it there when she noticed Dead Lady hoofing it to the john.

  Bug Porn Guy swore under his breath. Sounded like a different language, too. He looked Mexican.

  “What’s the problem?” asked Officer Parente. Pam had called for her specifically because it was the ladies’ john.

  Pam explained then stepped aside so the police could do their thing. Didik was already calling it in on the radio.

  “She didn’t take the coat to the john with her,” Pam said to the bug porn guy, walking back to the booth where Dead Lady had been sitting. “But it’s gone now.”

  Wait a minute…

  If she didn’t take the coat with her and it was gone now, where was it? Had som
eone taken it? Who? Why?

  Bug Porn Guy obviously had the same questions, and he seemed really stressed. He swore again and looked kind of nauseated himself. Pretty sure he hadn’t somehow copped the coat.

  “Okay, look, if she didn’t take it with her to the john and she never left the john, that means someone else took it,” Pam said. “And that means that someone must’ve known she died…” Or helped her die?

  That was what Adrian Monk would say.

  “And her purse, too, right?” Bug Porn Guy looked devastated. Then suddenly he swung his attention to her. “A cardboard box? You said she had a cardboard box too.”

  “She did. Looked like it was the freaking Holy Grail or something, the way she was carrying it.”

  “Did she take it to the bathroom with her? You said she left her coat…but that she took her purse. Did you notice if she took the box?”

  “No,” said Pam. “She was in a hurry, and she only had the purse. Like I said, she even left her coat.”

  “Where was she sitting?”

  “That one.” She would’ve gone over with him, but Parente was calling her back to the restroom hallway. She supposed she’d have to give them a statement now, wouldn’t she? Not the first time; probably wouldn’t be the last.

  By the time she finished talking to the cops, Bug Porn Guy was gone. She frowned. He probably should have stuck around to give his statement too. Seemed like he knew the lady, after all.

  Just then, the bell over the door jingled and she looked over, half expecting to see the bug guy coming back. But it was a freaking priest walking in the door.

  His clothing was unrelieved black, and the collar of his shirt was unfastened with its white tab hanging loose. He was one of those Father What-a-Wastes—youngish, good-looking, broad-shouldered, and, for some archaic reason, required to be celibate. He looked foreign too, with olive skin and soft black curls that clustered tight to his head. It was like the freaking United Nations here tonight.