“Why would he do that?”
“Maybe Volcy brought some kind of food across the border with him, not realizing it was what got him sick in the first place.”
“And what could that be?”
“You tell me,” Stanton said. “What would a Maya man give to someone he does business with? Something Gutierrez could’ve eaten or drunk with dairy in it?”
“There are a lot of possibilities,” Chel said.
Suddenly Stanton turned for his door. “Meet me at my car,” he told her, his voice full of purpose. “Around back.”
“Why?”
“Because before you turn yourself in to the police, we’re going to find out.”
ELEVEN
WHAT DID IT SAY ABOUT HER, CHEL WONDERED, THAT EVEN now she was fixated on the codex and the fact that she’d probably never be allowed to see it again? That she might never get a chance to find out who the writer was and why he risked his life to go against his king? What did it say about her that even now, as she and the doctor drove toward Gutierrez’s house, she was still focused on all the wrong things? To Stanton, sitting silently in the driver’s seat, Chel knew she was beneath contempt. He’d spent his life trying to stop disease from spreading, and her little academic exercise had put the whole city at risk.
Strangely, it was Patrick’s voice she now heard in her head. They were in Charlottesville, Virginia, for a meeting about the Mayan Epigraphic Database Project, and they were planning to hike the Appalachian Trail after it was over. When Chel told him she’d agreed to head another committee and couldn’t go, Patrick gave it to her. “Someday you’ll realize you’ve sacrificed too much for your work, and you can’t get it back,” he’d said. Chel thought he was speaking out of spite, and that it would blow over like all the other times. He’d moved out a month later.
She shifted in her seat and felt something catch on the heel of her shoe: a dog’s leash. From the size of the collar, it looked like the dog wasn’t a small one.
“Throw it in the back,” Stanton said, no warmth discernible in his voice. It was the first he’d spoken on their journey south. Chel watched him as he drove, both hands on the wheel like a driving-school student. Probably he was the type who never broke any rule. Stanton seemed to her to be a stern man, and Chel wondered if he was as lonely as he appeared. At least he had a dog. Chel stared out the windshield at the billboard-dotted Pacific Coast Highway. Maybe she’d get a pet once they fired her from the Getty and she had more time on her hands.
“Give it to me,” Stanton said.
Chel glanced over. “What?” Then she realized she was still clutching the dog’s leash, ridiculously. Stanton reached for it and tossed it into the backseat as he accelerated.
Chel had remembered that Hector Gutierrez lived in Inglewood, north of the airport. As they pulled up in front of the two-story Californian, she didn’t know what to expect. It was still possible the man’s family had no idea what had happened; no one had come forward yet to ID him.
“Let’s go,” Stanton said, turning off the car engine.
At the front door, he knocked, and a minute later a light went on inside. A raven-haired Latina woman came to the door in a long navy robe. Her puffy eyes suggested she’d been crying. It was clear to Chel that she already knew. And Chel also realized why she hadn’t gotten in touch with the authorities: Not only had the woman lost her husband, she was in danger of losing everything else. ICE and the FBI were unrelenting in their seizures of black- market profits.
“Mrs. Gutierrez?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Stanton from the Centers for Disease Control. This is Chel Manu, who has done business with your husband. We’re here with some very difficult news. Did you know your husband was involved in an accident today?”
Maria nodded slowly.
“May we come in?” Stanton asked.
“Outside is fine,” she said. “My son is trying to sleep.”
“We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Gutierrez,” Stanton said. “I can only imagine what you and your son must be going through right now, but I have to ask you some questions.” He paused, and when she finally nodded, he continued. “Your husband was very sick, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Have
“My husband was up all night every night for the last four. Now I have to explain to my son that he’s dead. So, yes, I have had a little trouble sleeping.”
“Any unusual sweating?” Stanton pressed.
“No.”
“Have you heard what’s happening at Presbyterian Hospital?”
Maria pulled the robe tighter around her. “I’ve seen the news.”
Stanton said, “Well, another man was very sick and died this morning, and we now know that he and your husband had the same disease. We believe the disease is spreading through some food item that could have been given to your husband by the first patient when he came up from Guatemala. Do you have any idea when or where your husband might’ve done business with a man named Volcy?”
Maria shook her head. “I didn’t know any of Hector’s business.”
“We need to search your house, Mrs. Gutierrez, to see if we can find out anything more. And we need to sample everything in your refrigerator.”
Maria covered her face with her hand, rubbing her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear to look at them anymore.
“This is an emergency,” Stanton said. “You have to help us.”
“No,” Maria said, resisting weakly. “Please leave.”
“Mrs. Gutierrez,” Chel said. “Yesterday morning your husband came to me with a stolen object and asked me to hold it for him. And I did it. I did it, and then I lied about it, and it turns out my lie might mean more people are sick now. I’ll have to live with that. But you won’t if you listen to us. Please let us come in.”
Stanton turned back to Chel, surprised by the commitment in her voice.
Maria opened the door.
THEY FOLLOWED HER DOWN a narrow hallway lined with photographs of soccer games and backyard birthday parties. In the kitchen, Stanton pulled everything out of the refrigerator and had Chel do the same with the pantries. They soon had more than twenty items on the countertop, including many with dairy in them, but none came from Guatemala, and none was unusual or imported. Stanton quickly searched through the trash and found nothing of interest there either.
“Is there anywhere your husband worked when he was home?” Stanton asked.
Maria led them to a study on the far end of the house. A stained white couch, a metal desk, and a few low bookshelves sat on top of an imitation Oriental rug. The small room reeked of cigarette smoke. The rest of the house was a shrine to the family, but there were no pictures inside the office. Whatever he did in here, Gutierrez didn’t want his son or his wife watching him do it.
Stanton started with the desk drawers. Tearing each one open, he found office supplies, a mess of bills, and other household paperwork: mortgage documents, payroll forms, electronics manuals.
Chel pulled her glasses out and focused on the computer. “There isn’t a dealer in the world who doesn’t sell online now,” she told Stanton.
