Sanskrit Cipher: A Marina Alexander Adventure Read online

  Randy was almost to his sleeper tractor when he felt something shift from off the front of him, then his next step was an ugly crunch.

  Shit. Crap. Damn.

  He bent in the middle of the sluicing rain to pick up what was left of his Aviator-style sunglasses that had been tucked into the pocket of his jacket. His Aviator-style prescription sunglasses.

  Just freaking great.

  He had another pair of sunglasses, but they weren’t prescription, and so he’d have to wear his regular glasses stacked behind them.

  Stupid truck-cleaning crew. Had he even asked them to wash his tractor? No. Had the truck even been dirty? No. Why the hell did anyone spray wash under the damned rig anyway? Who could see it under there?

  Probably some newbie trying to make good with the warehouse boss or something.

  Still swearing under his breath, Randy hoisted himself up into the seat of his rig, closing the door painted screaming red on the exterior with his own personal yellow and black logo on it. Ritter-Goes, he’d called it, and the image was a yellow greyhound with lightning-bolt eyes and four truck wheels for paws.

  Randy had owned his own tractor ten years gone now. It was a sleeper with a roomy bed and a windshield that popped out so he could pull up to the bays at the truck stops and get electrical and heat or air conditioning pumped inside. He’d been leasing it and his driving expertise to GrayTech Logistics near Detroit for nearly as long. Most of the time, Randy only vaguely knew what was in the trailer he pulled behind—usually barrels filled with some sort of hazmat stuff like corrosive acid or gasoline or whatnot—and he cared even less to ask as long as he was paid for delivering the load.

  He had a squeaky-clean driving record—which was why he was allowed to carry hazmat cargo for long hauls—and he got good wages that were always paid on time. And one of the guys in dispatch was a buddy of his, so he made sure Randy got some of the best hauls.

  But now some asswipe who washed down all the rigs just before a frigging thunderstorm—and who caused him to step on his freaking four-hundred-dollar glasses—was going to make him miss dinner with Bill Nodd at the Tier 1 Truck Stop because Randy was gonna have to refuel then drive right through in order to keep his on-time going.

  He hated missing dinner with Bill Nodd. They shot the shit and told trucker stories and sometimes argued about politics or the crappy state of the nation. Randy was a libertarian and Bill was just a plain old conservative, and once in a while, Jenny Bender—who was a bleeding-heart liberal and a lesbian to boot—joined them at their table. That was when the arguments got loud enough they usually collected a group of eager spectators—as if they thought Randy, Jenny, and Bill would come to blows.

  Nope. Never happen. Because after dinner and a shower, the three of them would find a fourth and they’d happily play euchre or pinochle at one of the back tables till it got too late.

  Good times.

  Having gotten himself situated with his mega thermos of coffee (black and extra sweet), a bag of pork rinds and one of peanuts, and a freaking bottle of water (his wife was always bitching at Randy that he needed to drink more water, but that just made him need to stop and piss more often, and it sure as hell didn’t keep him awake and alert), Randy started the engine.

  That sound—the low growl of the massive steel machine below and around him—and the feel of the seat rumbling pleasantly under his butt was almost as good as sliding into bed after a long day. It felt like coming home. There was hardly any other place he’d rather be than sitting on the driver’s seat that had been broken in to perfectly fit his ass and shoulders, with his grip on the wheel, his radio at hand, and the road in front of him.

  Even if it was lined with lightning, thunder, and sheets of rain.

  At least he wouldn’t need his sunglasses.

  Six

  Faith United Methodist Church

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  July 8, Tuesday morning

  “I’m sorry again about your daughter,” Dr. Sanchez said, shaking the hand of a short, rotund man in a final farewell.

  Tina watched from a prudent distance, trying to appear suitably sober and attentive—and not bored, which she totally was. It helped that the professor looked even hotter than usual in a dark suit and cobalt tie with tiny bees on it. His cocoa-bean hair was smoothed back in a neat tail, and he’d trimmed the goatee.

  “She was one of my most creative and intelligent students,” he said.

  “Patty spoke very highly of you, Dr. Sanchez. She felt you were someone who gave her a chance, not because of the way she—uh, well—looked, but because of what she did. Thank you for that.”

  “What do you mean, how she looked? Did she have two noses or something?” the professor said with a short laugh, then patted the other man’s arm as the laugh lines around his eyes disappeared. Tina eyed Sanchez’s long fingers and knobby wrists. “She was a lovely woman, both inside and out. I’ll miss her terribly.”

  Tina had already been caught off guard when one of the Denke family had asked her how she knew Patty, and she had to fumble through a coherent response. Considering the fact that she’d met the dead woman once, and that was at a department mixer for students who’d just declared for entomology, she didn’t have much to say. It certainly wouldn’t be appropriate to mention their entire conversation had been based around how difficult it was to get into Sanchez’s classes because he was so popular.

  But the awkward moment with a Denke cousin—or was it a sibling?—was worth it, because Tina had driven all the way from Champaign with Dr. Eli Sanchez alone. Apparently, no one else in the department was able to attend—or if they were, they came from a different direction, since it was summer and plenty of students were out on fieldwork.

  She’d even offered to drive, once she got a look at Dr. Sanchez’s aging Jeep Cherokee. Between the rust spots and the sagging bumper held in place by a bungee cord, plus the grating sound of the engine, his vehicle—which he called Juanita—didn’t look like it would make it to the mall, let alone the four hours to Cincinnati.

  “If you really don’t mind driving,” Sanchez had told her with a smile that made Tina’s knees go weak. “Juanita’s got to go in for an oil change and some work on the brakes. Plus, that will give me time to work on my laptop during the trip.”

  No, she didn’t mind at all.

  In fact, Tina was trying to figure out an excuse for stopping overnight somewhere, instead of making the drive to and from in one day. Or maybe if she had a nail in her tire…they’d get far enough away, then have to stop—

  She jolted when she realized Dr. Sanchez and Mr. Denke were both looking at her expectantly. “I’m sorry?”

  “It was so nice of you to come, Miss—umm…I’m so sorry I’ve forgotten your name.” Mr. Denke looked lost and bewildered.

  “Miss Janeski,” Sanchez replied before Tina did, and she flushed with pleasure at the smile he gave her. “She’s been amazing—even offered to drive so I could get some work done on the way. I wouldn’t have missed this regardless,” he said, just as Mrs. Denke came up.

  Patty’s mother appeared distraught. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Dr. Sanchez, but I’ve got to talk to my husband for a moment. Brett,” she went on as if Sanchez and Tina weren’t standing there, “I just got an update from Officer Tupperley. I can’t believe he called me during our daughter’s funeral service—I know I told him we were going to be busy. I don’t want to call him back right now.” Her voice wavered and her eyes were red, sending a wave of compassion over Tina.

  From what she understood—for everyone had been talking about it—not only had the Denkes’ daughter died in India, but their house had been broken into last night while they were at the funeral home visitation.

  “Jilly, darling, please don’t fret,” said Mr. Denke, sliding an arm around his wife and tugging her close. She was a full head taller than he was, and as slender as he was round. Tina could see that Patty had gotten her looks from her mother. “He can wait. We’ll
talk to him after this is over.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Mrs. Denke said, then looked up as if seeing Sanchez and Tina for the first time. “I’m so glad you can take Patty’s p-papers and all of her s-stuff.” Her eyes swam with tears. “I know if there’s anything you can do with them, Eli—I hope you don’t mind if I call you that; she always did and—and…” She stopped and swallowed.

  “I certainly will,” he replied gently. “It was nice of you to bring it all here for me.”

  “We weren’t certain whether you’d be here last night at the visitation or today, so we just brought it all and left it here,” Mr. Denke said, still looking lost. “She was pretty excited about something she found in India. Maybe it’ll make sense to you.” He shrugged. “I’m just an electrical engineer. I don’t know anything about bugs.”

  “Insects,” his wife said with a little laugh through her tears. She looked up at Sanchez. “It took Patty years to teach us to say insects instead of bugs. And to stop killing spiders and beetles that made their way inside the house. She wanted me to catch them instead. Even fruit flies!” She used a tissue to dab at her pink-tipped nose. “Did you get all of Patty’s things? There was a computer tablet—I think it belonged to the university. And all of her notes, and who knows what else.”

  “Not yet. But we’re going to leave now, so I can get it from the office and load it up,” the professor replied.

  Seizing on the moment, for Tina was long past ready to leave, she said, “I’ll go grab the car and pull it around so you don’t have to carry it far.” She figured that might help facilitate getting them out the door in the next thirty minutes.

  “Oh, thanks, Tina,” he said. “I don’t think there’s all that much—just a box—”

  “That’s all right; I don’t mind,” she said quickly. “I’m so sorry again for your loss, Mr. and Mrs. Denke. Patty will be greatly missed.”

  And before they could stall things any longer, she turned and hurried off…but not so fast that she didn’t give Dr. Sanchez ample time to admire her legs (shown to advantage in killer heels that were coming off the minute she got in the car) and the way her black skirt fit her butt.

  “It was very kind of you two to come all the way from Champaign,” Mr. Denke said, watching Tina walk away.

  Eli didn’t look; he was fully aware of the shape of the undergrad’s legs and the way her clothes fit—she’d been painfully obvious that she wanted him to notice. And sure, Eli had a pulse, and he liked women, so, yes, he’d noticed her—in the same way he’d notice the shape of a plumose antenna or the facets of a pair of tabanid eyes. That is to say, objectively. He was fully aware of the effect he had on some of the undergrads in his department, even if he didn’t exploit it.

  That was why, for the first few days of every semester, he parked himself in the most popular dining hall and opened his plastic containers of mopane worms, crickets, and caterpillar pupae and crunched away. That usually put off most of the eager ones, especially when he offered samples to anyone who wanted to try them.

  He rarely got any takers.

  The Denkes thanked him again for making the drive and once more for being Patty’s advisor, and then Mrs. Denke insisted on walking him to the office at the church where she’d put her daughter’s things.

  “I just don’t understand how this could happen,” she said, her voice raw with fresh tears. “One minute, Patty was fine—she Skyped with us a few days earlier, and said she thought she’d found something really exciting, and she couldn’t wait to tell you about it—and the next thing, we get a phone call from the U.S. consulate that she’s dead. It took over a week before they cleared her body and sent it back.”

  Eli let her talk and weep, and tried not to think about what Patty’s body might have looked like when she was found after being crushed in a vehicular accident in the mountains of Ladakh. He didn’t know the details of what happened, but it had been a closed-casket funeral for obvious reasons.

  They were walking out of the church office, with Eli carrying an empty shipping box filled with Patty’s papers and computer tablet, when he heard a sudden, ominous noise from outside.

  “That sounded like an explosion,” he said, hurrying toward the outside door—and the words were barely out of his mouth when people started running and shouting.

  Still carrying the cardboard box, Eli shoved open the glass door and rushed outside.

  “Oh my God.” The box slid to the ground, then he started off at a run.

  He didn’t get very far, for he was stopped by the raging heat from a rolling ball of fire…in exactly the place Tina Janeski’s car had been.

  Seven

  Cargath Steel

  Cleveland

  July 8, Tuesday afternoon

  Now, who the hell left this canister right in the middle of the damned warehouse?

  Filbert Strung grumbled to himself as he bent to swoop up a white plastic container with an attached sprayer hose. It was probably big enough to hold at least two gallons of whatever was inside, and it looked like one of those things his wife used when she was spraying their garden to keep the rabbits away.

  The milky beige stuff she used smelled like piss on steroids, and Filbert didn’t like the way the stink lingered in the yard for hours after Karleen sprayed it around. One time he’d been helping and accidentally got some on his pants, and then he smelled like coyote piss—because that’s what it was—for the rest of the day. Good thing it had been Saturday of a holiday weekend and he was off, for once.

  The abandoned container sloshed a little when he picked it up, and somehow he grabbed the handle in such a way that he managed to spray himself all over his work boots and the front of his shirt and pants, because Murphy’s law hated him and so did physics.

  He cursed and glowered at the stuff—which didn’t seem to be anything worse than water. At least it didn’t smell like coyote piss or even anything at all except a little earthy.

  The spray dampened the front of him from belt to boots, but he supposed it would dry. He hoped it wouldn’t stain, because that would just be all he needed, Karleen griping at him about his new boots and the fancy leather belt she’d bought him for his birthday. Big-ass buckle on the front with his initials—no, it was a monogram, was what she called it. FSE—the middle initial was for his last name, which was weird in his mind, but she’d explained that was what a monogram was, and that was why the middle letter was bigger than the other ones. Anyway, he liked it, and thank Jesus that whatever he just sprayed all over himself was only water.

  But who the hell left this here by the docks, anyway? He was sick and tired of picking up after the lazy sons of Bs that worked here at Cargath Steel. Trying to keep a safe workplace, and you got shit like this happening. Good thing it wasn’t anything flammable or chemical or whatever—all of that hazmat stuff was in the barrels and canisters they’d loaded up.

  What a bunch of clueless yahoos.

  He was the foreman and he was in charge and yada yada, but he wasn’t the guys’ mothers, you know?

  “Sandy!” he called when he saw one of the guys—who was actually a gal—walking across the far side of the warehouse.

  “’Sup, boss?” she asked, veering around to head toward him.

  She could make a direct beeline right now because the warehouse was mostly empty since all the drivers had left an hour or so ago. They’d loaded up a shit-ton of barrels of corrosive acid and other hazmat waste, but pretty soon there’d be another load coming in.

  “You know who left this out? I’m sick and tired of puttin’ away the guys’ crap all the time,” Filbert said, thrusting the canister toward her.

  “Haven’t got a clue, boss,” she replied, putting her hands on her hips as if to prevent him from handing her the problematic canister. “Good thing nobody tripped over it,” she added with a wry smile. “Or spilt it all over. Mighta broken your safety record. Hundred and twenty-two days and counting’s pretty good.”

  “Damn right it is
,” he replied, unable to hold back his own smile. He liked Sandy. She didn’t take any crap from anyone, even though she was one of only three women who worked at the warehouse at Cargath. “Wish I knew whose it was.”

  “Wasn’t it the guy cleaning the trucks out there?” she said, a little frown line appearing between her eyes. “Ritter was bitching about not needing his truck cleaned and it making him late.”

  “Who was cleaning the trucks?” Filbert asked in astonishment. “We don’t clean trucks here. We’re not a flipping car wash. Next thing you know they’ll be wanting their tractors detailed.”

  “That’s what I thought, but there was a guy out there, spraying them down. Mighta been using that.”

  Filbert was very confused. “In the rain? Who was it?”

  Sandy shrugged, lifting her hands from her hips to spread them, punctuating her response. “I don’t pretend to know what goes on in the minds of men.”

  Filbert shook his head and, with a growl, flung the stupid plastic canister into the nearest trash can. Whoever was using it was going to be missing it now, weren’t they? That was how he and Karleen raised their kids—you don’t pick up after yourself, your stuff gets tossed in the trash. End of story.

  It only had to happen once, when Matty’s favorite video game console got left out for two days—after being told to put it away. Karleen whipped it up and into the garbage and marched the trash can down to the road where the garbage collectors were just up the block.

  Goodbye, game console.

  Matty was only nine, but he learned his lesson.

  Too bad Filbert’s adult employees hadn’t had a mom like Karleen.

  “I’m outta here,” he called to Sandy, and jammed on his ball cap as he fished the keys out of his jacket pocket. “See ya tomorrow.”