Deity (3 page)

Despite
the dean’s enthusiasm, the Effigy technically remained in Lori’s control, and
ultimately it was her decision to pass up the Utah Museum of Natural History to
donate the artifact to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. That single decision infuriated
Snead which had to be the reason he told Dr. Peet to decline her field study
application. And it was that underhanded act of revenge which prompted Lori to
track the dean down on the front lawn of his high-suburban home.

He
had the gall to look surprised.

She
skipped the formalities and cut straight to the point. “Why have I been
rejected from this summer’s field study?” she demanded, waving the creased and
crumpled rejection letter at him.

Dr.
Snead straightened and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his Roman nose. “That
is a faculty decision, Miss Dewson,” he explained matter-of-factly.

“Is
it?” Lori pressed. “I was told you made some recommendations.”

Dr.
Snead stood and shifted uncomfortably. “This is highly unprofessional bringing
this issue here,” he said evasively.

“I
had no choice. You apparently don’t go to your office during the summer break.”

“There’s
little business to attend to until summer classes begin,” he said. “Not that
you need be concerned with that.”

“This
letter concerns me,” Lori snapped.

“Then
you should take it up with the faculty that will be heading the field study.”

“I
already did. Dr. Peet said you recommended my rejection and I demand to know
why.”

Dr.
Snead rocked back on his heels and finally stood, peeling the gloves from his
hands. “Miss Dewson, when there are other students that might find greater
benefit in the study, I do recommend they take top priority.”

“This
was my project,” Lori said. “Who could possibly take higher priority?”

Dr.
Snead raised an eyebrow. “As I recall, Miss Dewson, you turned your project
over to Mexico.”

“I
don’t need the Effigy to excavate The Trader’s bones.”

“Perhaps,
but you don’t need to excavate the bones in order to study them. Let the other
students do the work for you. Then, when they are safely returned to the
university, you may study them with everybody else.”

Lori
began to shake with fury. “You know I’m running out of time to complete my
dissertation,” she spat. “I’m losing valuable time if I sit around waiting for
the excavation to wrap up. I need the data in situ.”

“Don’t
you worry about your
dissertation.
I know you’ll do
just fine.”

“But
I’m going to need another draft submitted to Dr. Peet first thing come fall
semester,” Lori insisted.

“Oh,”
Dr. Snead said, slipping off the straw hat to dab at the sweat beading along
his balding head. “

Lori
was floored. “What?”

“Didn’t
he tell you? Well, I’m sure there’s another letter in the mail.”

Lori’s
knees felt weak. Her fire was suddenly doused by this new revelation. “How can
this be? He’s been my advisor since my
Freshman
year.”

But there was much more to it than that. Dr. Peet had
been the one constant throughout her collegiate career. His primary interest in
Southwestern cultures complemented her study in the Anasazi ceramic trade. At
first he was just her professor. As her own studies progressed beyond her
Master’s degree, he’d become less of an instructor and more of a partner, a
sounding post for research, a colleague. So quite naturally, Dr. Peet became
the chairman of her graduate committee that headed her dissertation—that final
momentous step toward receiving her Doctorate. Now, just when she needed his
knowledge and support the most, he was intentionally making himself
unavailable.

Dr.
Snead shook his head. “At this point in your career, Miss Dewson, you don’t
need an advisor.”

“How
can Dr. Peet back out of my research now? I’m so close to finishing.”

The
dean shrugged unsympathetically. “Perhaps he’s no longer qualified for that
position.”

“That
doesn’t make sense. If he isn’t qualified, who is?”

Dr.
Snead smiled. “Given the exceptional circumstances regarding your dissertation,
Miss Dewson, I will now chair your graduate committee.”

Lori’s
head spun. This was so unlike Dr. Peet.
So unexpected.
She needed a clearer
explanation,
one Dr. Snead seemed
to refuse to give. She needed answers and she was bound and determined to get
them, even if she had to confront Dr. Peet again. After all, his absence from
her graduate committee would leave a big hole that nobody, not even the
department dean, could fill.

Peet

Anthropologist
Anthony Peet held a death grip on the control panel in front of him, holding
firmly to a small area of plastic and dials where he knew he wasn’t going to
bump a button or gadget or anything else that might result in a shift more violent
than the pitching he was already enduring.

“Take
it easy over the speed bumps, KC,” he complained into his headset.

The
pilot simply laughed. “What’s the matter?” she teased. “Are your legs too long
for your wings?”

“My
legs are just fine,” Peet groaned, “when they’re set firmly on the ground.”

Interestingly
enough, it was when Peet couldn’t see the ground that he seemed to handle
flying the best. That, he’d just discovered, was the benefit of flying at
night. Surrounded by darkness it was easier for the lights blinking at the
wingtips and the slight glow from the cockpit panel to sooth his nerves. It was
easier to forget he was flying when earth and horizon were indistinguishable. But
now dawn saturated the eastern sky and the dark earth was readily absorbing the
morning glow below…far, far below. To top it off, they’d flown into unstable
air which seemed determined to shake any lingering traces of night from their
wings.

“Don’t
get antsy just yet,” KC said. “We still have a good twenty minutes of air time,
and it’s bound to get bumpier as we head in.”

Peet
didn’t like the sound of that as the Twin Commander bucked again if only to
prove her point. Flying was not exactly high on his
preferred-modes-of-transportation list. In fact, it ranked right there at the
bottom with oxen-yoked prairie schooners. The one thing going for the Oregon Trail was it’s location on the ground. Bicycles,
buses, trains, boats…he might even handle the claustrophobic confines of a submarine…he’d
take anything over flying—especially in this droning, cramped sewer tube about
to be permanently marked with the indentations of his fingers. But this time he
had no choice. He had to get to Mexico
City.

And
he had to get there fast.

That’s
how he came to meet KC McCulley. The seasoned pilot had been a referral when
the Aeromexico ticket agent informed him that all flights to Mexico City were oversold for the next two
weeks. As Peet shuffled away, a luggage handler stepped out of the back room
and called him back up to the ticket counter.

“You
flying to Mexico?”
the husky, middle-aged woman asked as she removed the blackened leather gloves
from her hands.

“As
soon as I can find a seat,” he said. “But it doesn’t look like that’s going to
happen.”

The
woman leaned over the counter and lowered her voice. “My sister will get you
there. She’s a bit of a flyboy, but she’ll get you where you need to go.”

KC
turned out to be nothing like the brute of a woman her sister was. She wasn’t
quite forty, he guessed, and trim, attractive even, and brimming with
self-confidence. She was all business—that’s what Peet noticed immediately. In
a take it or leave it manner she introduced him to the small Twin Commander she
simply called The Ladybug for the red and black lines streaking along it sides.
Her services were his, but it mattered little if he turned her down.

“You
fly to Mexico
in this?” Peet had asked, carefully stepping around the tie stretched between
the left wing and the pin bolted into the tarmac.

“Been
down and back twice already,” KC boasted as she manually lowered the cabin
door. Peet followed her inside.

The
plane had been internally gutted from tail to cockpit save for a mess of cargo
nets and a pair of passenger seats bolted near the bulkhead. Peet swallowed
hard, suddenly wishing for the team of oxen.

“Is
this legal?”

“You’ve
got nothing to fear,” KC said. “The FBI already has my prints.”

Peet’s
concern must have washed across his face for she suddenly laughed. “My
fingerprints have to be on file in order to carry the U.S. mail,” she explained. “I had
the rural route to Garrison until some jerkoff company bid the contract out
from under me six months ago. Luckily there’s a lot of interest in Mexico
right now. You
know,
all the 2012 bullshit.
Sounds like that’s the place to get front row seats to the end of
the world, if the end of the world is where you want to be.”

Peet
shared a smile as KC laughed again. Unfortunately, she was right. Any last
minute hopes to jump a commercial flight to anywhere in Mexico appeared futile, unless one
found an opportunistic pilot looking to make a few extra bucks, and for Peet,
KC was it.

It
seemed ironic that in all his years in archaeology, Peet had never been to Mexico City. Just his
luck, 2012 was his year and this happened to be his second trip in six months. Neither
trip was intended to experience the chaos that had become 2012, though as it
turned out, that was exactly what prompted his first frantic trip. So much was
different about this trip, and yet, so much was the same, and he couldn’t help
but wonder if all the 2012 hype was catching up to him yet again.

And
it all began some fifteen hours ago.

* * * *

“Anthony.
Thank God you’re here.”

Peet
stamped his feet on the front step, noticing the December snow already foot-packed
onto the unswept doormat. Without hesitation, Martha scampered back in her slippered
feet as though her frail frame was caught by the door’s opening momentum. Her
urgent hospitality caught him off guard as she ushered him through an
ordinarily unwelcoming threshold.

“I’m
so glad you came,” she said. “I’m just beside myself. I don’t know what to do.”

It
wasn’t so much what Martha was saying that had Peet taken by surprise, though
her use of God was completely out of character. It was more the fact that she
was talking to him at all that he found confusing. Up until he’d received her
frantic phone call thirty minutes earlier, she hadn’t spoken a word to him in
years. He reached for the laces of his boots if only to give
himself
a moment to consider this sudden development when he felt her bony hands light
on his arm and shoulder.

“Don’t
worry about the snow, Anthony,” she said, urging him to straighten again. “The
rug will dry.”

The
rug, a handmade Tibetan Bufan sprawling just beyond the entryway, had been a
gift from her daughter, Cathy, just before her unfortunate death; just before
Peet and Martha had their falling out. Shoes were not permitted across the vibrant
pattern in the intricate fibers much less boots that had just
tread
through the slush and grime of the Salt Lake City streets. Surely the years
hadn’t relaxed Martha’s standards.

Peet
obligingly followed her around the corner of the entryway, and right there in
the cozy little den he was surprised to find two men contentedly sipping on
Martha’s tea. The first, and tallest of the two, stood at the mantle of the gas
fireplace while the second sat on the edge of the suede sectional sofa. This
man rose to his feet as Martha let him enter the room.

“Hello?”
Peet said, failing to disguise the confusion in his voice.

“Anthony,”
Martha began uncomfortably. “This is agent Miles and agent—”

“Agent
Michael Kamenski,” the man from the sofa said as he set his tea down and
whipped out his badge.
“Federal Bureau of Investigations.”

Martha’s
grip tightened on Peet’s arms. “This is Anthony, my son-in-law.”

Agent
Kamenski stepped forward and extended a hand. “You must be Dr. Anthony Peet,
the archaeologist?”

“Peet
will do,” he said, accepting the agent’s firm grasp. Everything about the man
was solid, from his bulldog jowls to his rigid stance. It’d take a mighty wind
to blow this man down.

“What’s
this all about?” Peet asked.

“They’re
here to inquire about John,” Martha said through a slight tremor in her voice.

“We
understand you’ve recently worked with Dr. Friedman,” the agent said.

Peet
shrugged. “I suppose if you consider June as recent.”

“Have
you made contact with him since then?”