The Idol

(I tried to write a story that included every prompt, but this was written before the additional prompts went up, and I didn’t have time to rewrite it to include the new ones.)

THE IDOL

Attending her father’s funeral was not how Regan Porter had imagined spending graduation weekend.  Beautiful May sunshine fell upon the somber mourners gathered at the cemetery.  There were many, Regan thought as they began to disperse after the ceremony, each quietly making their way to their car.

Only Regan and Phillip Shaw remained, wordlessly staring into the grave located alongside her mother’s.  Phillip was Dr. Porter’s closest friend, and chief-of-staff.  A few years her father’s senior, he had helped raise Regan after her mother died of breast cancer when Regan was only nine.  As the sun beat down, the lines in his face became deep crevasses of shadows; he began looking his age.

Now I’m an orphan, she thought, and a fresh batch of tears flowed down her warm cheeks.  She allowed Shaw to escort her home, but didn’t speak until he asked if she was hungry as they walked through the foyer and into the kitchen.

Regan shook her head; she was not hungry for food, but rather information, acceptance, or even closure, “Phillip, what happened to Dad?  He’s made that trip to Mexico hundreds of times; he was practically a native.”

He shrugged as he took a roast beef sandwich from the refrigerator, “I would like to know the same, Sweetheart.”

Regan pulled her dark hat from her head and tossed it atop the kitchen island.  She leaned against the countertop and absently ran a hand through her damp hair; she didn’t normally have it down and she didn’t like it.  She searched for – and found – a hair tie and pulled her hair back into a ponytail as she ran the scenario over in her head.  She could find no logical explanation to appease her anger so she grimaced, “Searching for that damned idol was his life’s work, and finding it would have been historically significant; the locals should have thrown a God damn parade for him!”

Phillip rested his own hip on the countertop across from Regan, but could not get comfortable; Dr. Porter’s house was big and empty, and the absence of life made him squirm.  He held his plate up to his chin and peered over the sandwich at Regan, “It wasn’t the locals, dear heart.”

A stalactite of ice shot up her spine, and her sweat was quickly forgotten.  Her back stood rigid as she picked her head up to look at Phillip, “What do you mean?”

The old man gave an off-hand shrug, “That idol must have monetary significance as well as historical, Regan.  That is a very poor part of the world, and it was probably more than enough motivation for someone to try to profit.”

Regan set her jaw and her green eyes turned ice blue beneath furrowed brows as she considered suspects, “How did my father die, Phillip?”

Phillip did not move for the longest time; Regan wondered if he still breathed.  Finally, he said, “I don’t want to talk about this today, Hon.  Let’s give your father some peace.”

Regan agreed, but peace would not come for her.  She showered and pecked at some dinner before gathering Dr. Porter’s research books, papers, and notes.  She locked herself upstairs in her old bedroom.  The days were certainly longer this time of year, but eventually she turned on the lamp by her bed to read.  She burned the midnight oil, and the birds outside began to awaken and signal the approaching dawn when her head snapped up and she whispered, “He found it.”

Regan threw some clothes into a bag and ran downstairs.  She left a note on the kitchen table for Phillip and slipped out the patio door.

The sun was just peeking through the trees when Regan punched a number into her cell phone she had found in her father’s notes.  The air was warm and she drove with the top down.  It only occasionally tugged at her hair, but the ride was loud enough to make a phone conversation difficult; Regan almost missed it when a man picked up on the seventh ring and mumbled, “This had better be good, I’m working on about five hours of sleep for the whole week.”

“Is this Cutter Delp?”

There were a few moments of silence, as if he had to think about it, “Yeah.  Who are you?”

“My name is Regan Porter, Mr. Delp; Andrew Porter was my father.”

“Aw, hell…”

Before he could tell her how sorry he was for her loss, she demanded to speak with him, face to face, right then.  He gave her directions to his place and she knocked on his door within minutes.

Regan had never quite understood the term, “Death Warmed Over” until Cutter opened the door.  His hair was a rat’s nest of shaggy brown snarls, he had a solid week’s growth of beard, and the dark circles under his eyes were so deep they looked fake.  He was barefoot, but wore a Pantera T-shirt that had been washed almost to the point of unrecognition, and cut-offs that were nearly as threadbare as the shirt.

Regan walked into Cutter’s tiny apartment without invitation and opened her mouth.  A long barrage of statements, stories, and accusations erupted from her lips much too fast for Cutter to follow, and he harkened back to freshman year in high school, and his first Shakespeare soliloquy.

He didn’t understand Shakespeare either.

“He found it,” Regan said at last, and suddenly Cutter was very awake.

“What?”

Regan was excited.  She paced around his dinky apartment like a slot racer; Cutter thought he was going to be carsick if he watched her.  She pulled a rolled up notebook from her back pocket and stabbed a finger at one of the pages, “He doesn’t actually say he found it, but right here, near the end…”

“You’re very animated.  I might go into seizure, like those Japanese kids watching Anime.”

Regan ignored the statement, and when she looked up at Cutter, her eyes shone like twin beacons in the darkness, “He altered everything!  Changed his search patterns, his dig site, he sent his entire team away.”

Cutter said nothing, but knew there had to be a point somewhere.  He cocked a questioning eyebrow.

“Decoys!”

“Huh?”

Regan shook off his ignorance with a decisive flick of her head and looked again at the notebook, “Dad was really worried about this guy, Melvin Vasquez.”

Cutter nodded and looked into his empty coffee mug, “Vasquez.  Super rich, megalomaniacal asshole.  He soaked a lot of money into finding that freakin’ idol.  He was going to sell it to the highest bidder and make another fortune from it.  Your dad hated him, and I hate him too.  I guess just about everybody hates him.  Your dad and I had a little too much to drink one night, and debated on how Vasquez was going to die.  Your dad said a charging Water Buffalo might run amok and trample him; I said he’d eat some bad goose liver pate.”

Regan smiled, “Well, maybe it’ll involve a piano.”

Cutter returned her smile, “A falling piano would certainly do the job.”

“So, anyway, Dad sent out all of his men to run different errands in far-off locales – you included.  This would keep Vasquez off-guard long enough so Dad could dig up his precious idol unbothered.”

“Well…”

“So, what I’m thinking is this: he found the idol, but stashed it before Vasquez killed him.”

“Wait, there’s nothing that proves Dr. Porter was even murdered, much less by Melvin Vasquez.”

“Oh, come on!”

Cutter shrugged, “Your father certainly died under curious circumstances, I will give you that, and I would put Vasquez’s name at the top of my ‘Suspect’ list, but there’s still no proof.”

Regan made a sour face, “My father’s death reeks of murder.”

Cutter looked at the floor and slowly nodded, but said nothing; it sounded like murder to him, as well.

“So, we have to go to Mexico and reclaim the idol before that bastard gets his grubby mitts on it,” Regan said.

She continued persuading him, “I know you were Dad’s pilot, Cutter.  We can take the plane down there at once and get a lead by this afternoon.  If we’re lucky, we’ll have the idol in our possession by dark fall.”

Cutter let out a big sigh and said, “I’m gonna need some more coffee.”

*** *** *** ***

They were airborne within the hour.  Regan’s chatter was incessant, but Cutter found the drone of the aircraft helped drown her out.  She suddenly became very interested in him and his activities leading up to Dr. Porter’s death; Cutter felt as though she was interrogating him, and short of climbing into a parachute and jumping, he was trapped.

“Where did my father send you?”

Cutter frowned and shook his head, “Just some menial errands that could’ve waited ‘til we got back to the States.  I was kind of surprised he sent us all away, what with us getting closer to finding the idol.”

Regan agreed, “Definitely something fishy here.”

They landed and took adjoining rooms at the hotel.  Regan formed a plan of action while Cutter helped her unpack her father’s papers.

“All right, first, we’ll set up camp and get the lay of the land.  Now, according to my father’s notes, you guys have extensively searched the remaining ancient structures, so my dad thought it might be trapped in some hidden ruins that remain undiscovered.”

“That’s a shot in the dark,” Cutter grumbled.

Regan gave him a quick reproachful look.

“You said you just graduated from college, right?”

“Yes.”

“With a degree in…?”

“Geology.  I thought I could use it to help Dad.””

“Listen to yourself,” Cutter explained, “the two of us – because we don’t have a team – will search through hundreds of miles of rainforest for a stone structure that sank beneath the thick tree curtain hundreds of years ago.  Even better, someone with no archeological experience’ll lead us!  That’s the wildest needle-in-a-haystack proposal I’ve ever heard!”

“It’s not really archeology; it’s a treasure hunt.  It’s all right here in Dad’s notes, like a treasure map.”

Cutter sighed, “Those aren’t real notes.  Your father liked to free-write sometimes, to open his mind to different possibilities.  To kind of jump-start his brain.  He must have run out of scrap paper, so he free-wrote in his journal.  There is absolutely no shred of credibility in those notes, Regan.”

Regan’s shoulders sank.  If what Cutter had said was true, then she had placed false hope on a whimsy.  Frustrated, she placed her hands on the table and let her head drop; strands of her hair hung past her face as she thought about what Cutter had said.  Her father would think her a failure if she couldn’t save his idol.  It was his life’s work, and she wanted only to honor him by bringing it home, but she was neither a historian nor an archeologist; she hadn’t a clue where to begin the search.
Earlier, Regan had said that, with any luck, they would have the idol by nightfall.  Now she wondered if she would ever see it in her lifetime.  Grief and depression mingled until her eyes could no longer contain the welling tears, and she mumbled something that Cutter couldn’t hear as she cried.

“What?”

She couldn’t control her nose either; she sniffed and replied, between sobs, “I said, I can’t let him go.”

Cutter had no words as he watched Dr. Porter’s daughter bury her face in her hands and weep openly.  He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know her well enough to say anything empathetic.  He spent more time in airplanes and wandering around jungles than interacting with beautiful, young college girls.  He walked up to her back, hesitated, and then stiffly put a hand on her shoulder.  He hoped it was reassuring, “Don’t cry, it’s alright.”

He leaned in closer to her and pulled her body into his in a sort of hug.  He wondered how comforting it would be to be pulled into a 2x4, so he relaxed a little, “Regan, you don’t have to let him go; he was your father, and he’ll be with you forever.  Always remember him and keep him in your heart.”

Regan turned around, but her hair was obstructing her face, so Cutter couldn’t read her eyes enough to know whether she was going to deck him.  Suddenly, her lips parted to reveal her white teeth.  She emitted a little self-conscious laugh, as if she knew how awful she looked but laughed through the tears and snot anyway, “Thank you, Cutter; I’ll remember that.”

He was surprised when she wrapped her arms around him in a full embrace.  They stayed that way for a moment, then Regan pulled away from him and asked him for a Kleenex.

“Are you kidding?  In this country?  They don’t even have toilet paper!”

She laughed, pulled her hair back, and ran the back of her hand under her nose, “Better.”

Cutter laughed, “You gotta learn to rough it in these third world countries.”

Regan cleared her eyes and gave a little sniffle, “So, what do we do?”

“Talk to the men.”

“Why?”

Cutter leaned forward so that his face was only inches away from Regan’s.  His hands were an animated dance at his chest as he said, “You told me that everyone from the site was sent away, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought I was the only one!”

Regan’s face was blank.  She shrugged, “So?”

Cutter shook his head and paced; his hands were still going a mile-a-minute in thought, “I want to know who sent them away.  Whoever did it was probably just clearing the camp so they could kill Dr. Porter with no witnesses present, like you suggested.”

Regan was aghast.  She had met most of the team members over the course of her many trips with her father to Mexico.  She could not believe any of them would be disloyal enough to murder Dr. Porter, “You don’t suspect one of the team members, do you?”

Cutter shook his head, “I wish I didn’t, but if Melvin Vasquez – or someone like him – paid enough cash, then maybe somebody might have been tempted.”

A look of supreme disappointment washed over Regan’s face, “Cold-blooded murder… for money?”

Cutter nodded, “Sure, it’s green enough.”

“Well, who asked you to leave the site?”

Cutter’s head spun; Regan had the ability to verbally ambush with the best prosecuting attorney.  While he was personally hurt by her distrust in him, he was also impressed with her determination to see things through.  And, he realized, she didn’t know him from Adam, so why trust him any more than the others?  He took a moment to settle himself before answering, “Dr. Porter, himself.”

“Why?”

Cutter paused a moment, then raised an eyebrow, “Mail.”

Regan crossed her arms over her chest, “Huh.”

“Yeah, I know.  That was something that could have waited until we got back.”

Regan scratched her chin while her eyes focused on something a million miles away, “How do we find the team?”

“Some of them came back for the funeral, but most couldn’t afford a trip stateside, so they are still here in the city.”

Regan nodded, her mind made up, “All right, let’s go talk to the guys.”

Paolo Anchilides lived in a small apartment directly across the street from Regan and Cutter’s hotel.  Paolo had been the liaison for the team, able to procure the appropriate legal documents from the local government to keep things running smoothly, and, when necessary, ready to grease the proper palms, also in the name of expedience.  They entered the street, and even though the sun was weakening, the humidity was almost at the saturation point.

“Paolo’s the best interpreter I’ve ever met, too,” Cutter said, “he was invaluable as a go-between for the English-only Americans and the Spanish-speaking locals.”
Cutter wore only shorts and a tank top, but he had somehow managed to break a sweat in the time it took them to cross the street.

Regan gave a light chuckle, “Really?  And what makes you think he wasn’t screwing with you, and making up his own shit to be funny?”

Cutter looked over at Regan, a twinkle in his eye.  Then he winked, “Because I speak just enough Spanish to be able to eavesdrop pretty effectively.”

They entered the tiny apartment building and climbed to the second floor.  Regan thought that, at the very least, the indoors would provide reprieve from the sun.  The reality was more depressing: heat radiated through the walls and baked them from the inside.  As they walked to Paolo’s door, Regan couldn’t help but be reminded of a microwave oven; she was as covered in sweat as was Cutter.

“Lovely country,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Cutter knocked, waited, knocked again.  He was just considering their next option when the door opened and a small, fity-ish man looked up at Cutter.  A large smile brightened an otherwise bleak face, “Cutter!  You are back!  It is good to see you, but so soon after the funeral?  Was it nice?”

“I didn’t make it back in time for Dr. Porter’s funeral, I’m afraid.”  Cutter shifted the older man’s attention to the beautiful young woman standing to his immediate right,
“This is Dr. Porter’s daughter, Regan.”

Paolo’s face blanched of all color, and a look of holy reverence unclouded his old eyes.  His toothless mouth popped open, but he made no effort to close it.  Finally he spoke, “Senorita, you are an angelic reminder of your father.  He was a great man, and I am so sorry we lost him.”

“As am I.  Thank you for your kind words, Senor Anchilides.”

“Paolo, please.”

“Paolo, may we come in?”

Paolo saw the seriousness in Cutter’s face and he nodded gravely, “Of course, dear Cutter.”

They sat at a small, metal table directly in front of a thirty year-old refrigerator that hummed noisily.  Anchilides offered lemonade.

“No, thanks, Paolo; we’ll only be here a minute,” Cutter said.

“Of course,” Paolo steepled his weathered hands in front of his nose, “what is on your minds?”

Cutter wasn’t sure how to proceed, but they didn’t have enough time for anything other than the blunt approach, “Paolo, where were you when Dr. Porter died?”

The old man’s face sagged in shock, “Is this an inquisition, Senor Delp?  Am I a suspect?  I have known the bendito Porter for twenty years!”

Regan snapped erect in her rickety chair, “’Bandito?’  My father wasn’t a criminal!”

“Regan, shut up,” Cutter said, “’bendito’ means ‘blessed.’”

Regan suddenly saw her father as the old Mexican saw him: he was a great man who was much respected by everybody.

Cutter turned to Anchilides, “Paolo, please calm down.  We don’t think you had anything to do with Dr. Porter’s death, we just need to know what happened.”

Anchilides softened, but not much, “I do not know what happened; I was gone at the time of his death.”

“Where?”

“I was sent to the Consulate to obtain a digging permit in another part of the forest.”

Regan leaned forward in her seat.  This was very important.  This was why she and Cutter were there, “By whom, Paolo?  Who sent you away?”

Anchilides’s brown eyes widened in disbelief.  A scowl tugged at the corners of his mouth as he answered, “You did, Senorita Porter.”

The room was silent for a long time.  The world outside even seemed muted.  Consciousness threatened to abandon her, but Regan focused on a spot on the wall and willed herself to keep from fainting.  When at last she was able to see through her tunnel vision, she felt the hot gaze of two men on her face, awaiting explanation.

“No, I didn’t,” she said weakly.

The old Mexican got up and retrieved an envelope from his desk.  He tossed it on the table in front of Regan, “Is this not your return address?”

“I’ve been away at college.  I haven’t been home for months,” Regan was starting to feel overly defensive, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that overreacting would not help.

She took the envelope and looked at it, but the grayness began encompassing her vision.  How could that old man think she had anything to do with her father’s death?
Sure enough, in the opposite corner of the postmark, was her home address.  Regan couldn’t breathe; it was impossible!

Cutter took the envelope from her and examined it himself.  A small, “Son of a bitch,” escaped his lips.  He turned to face her, but she was already looking at him, and he paused, his accusations temporarily forgotten.

“It’s Phillip’s handwriting,” she said, and passed out.

*** *** *** ***

Cutter awoke Regan, and together, they bustled everything back on to the plane.  Regan felt numb during the flight, with the exception of the nausea that gripped her stomach.  They landed short of midnight, and Cutter drove her car.  He told her he needed to stop at his place to check the mail, but she was nearly catatonic with shock and barely heard him.

They pulled into Dr. Porter’s driveway at a quarter-past twelve.  Cutter jumped from behind the wheel, but Regan hesitated.

Cutter opened the door for her, “Come on, Regan; we’ve got to see this through.”

“Hold on, I’ve got to make a call first.”

This was an odd response, and Cutter thought Regan had lost it, but soon the two of them had switched on every light in the house and had roused Shaw from his bed.  He blustered, but was unprepared for the presentation of evidence against him.

Cutter thrust the envelope in his face, “This is your handwriting, Mr. Shaw!  You were the one who sent everyone away!  Did you kill Dr. Porter with your own bare hands, or did you hire some scumbag to do it for you?”

Phillip Shaw saw his life pass before his eyes.  He had worked so hard on a plausible defense, but waking him from a sound sleep was unfair.  He stumbled, “It wasn’t me, I swear!  All I did was send everyone away; I didn’t know why.”

He fell to his knees and blubbered, “I just did it for the money!  I didn’t know he was going to die, I swear!”

White-hot rage exploded in Regan.  She lunged for Shaw with both fists curled into tight balls.  “You son-of-a-bitch!  I’ll kill you!”

Cutter put himself between Regan and Shaw and pushed her back.  Turning his attention back to the withered old man, he asked, “Who’s money did you take, Mr. Shaw?  Who paid you to clear the camp?”

“Who else?” Shaw sounded miserable, “Vasquez.  He contacted me personally and set up the plan.  I thought he was just going to steal the idol.  I never knew anyone was going to get hurt.  Please…”

Cutter held up Regan’s open cell phone to Shaw’s face and spoke in a clear, loud tone, “Officer Menendez, did you get that?”

Through the speakerphone, a woman’s voice answered, “Every word, Mr. Delp.  We’re sending two units to you right now.”

The cops came to arrest Phillip Shaw.  It was dawn before Regan and Cutter were alone.  They sat together on a chaise lounge by the pool and silently watched the sunrise.

Regan broke the silence, “I watched the sun come up yesterday, too.”

“You should get some rest, “Cutter said, one arm around her.

“Yeah.”

“It’s been a hell of a day.”

“Yeah.”

They remained quiet for a while, until Regan’s curiosity made her ask, “So, legally-speaking, what do we do about getting the idol back?  Do we have legs to stand on?”

Cutter got up and walked out front, to Regan’s car.  He returned, carrying a small wooden crate.  “I don’t know anything about legal issues, but I’ve got a good feeling about getting the idol back,” he said, and placed the crate in her lap.

Without opening it, she knew instantly what it was.  She looked up at Cutter and asked, “You had it all along, didn’t you?”

Screws held the crate together.  Cutter squatted next to Regan and handed her a phillips-head screwdriver.  While she worked the crate, he explained, “Your dad expected something from Vasquez.  He sent me away to get the idol here as soon as possible.”

Regan gave him a look as she pried one of the corners off, “This is hardly mail.”

“I never said I mailed letters.”

She squeezed his hand appreciatively, “Dad must have really trusted you.”

He said nothing, but smiled as Regan finished opening the crate.  She pulled out all the packing materials, leaving the eighteen-inch, jade idol by itself inside.  Regan and Cutter both leaned in to examine it.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen,” she said, a hushed tone of reverence in her voice.

“Thanks,” Cutter returned.

Regan giggled, “I wasn’t talking to you!”