Poe Baxter Books 05-Spines and Slaughter by Bookens ACF

Author:Bookens, ACF [Bookens, ACF]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cozy, American Cozy, American Mystery, Amateur Investigator, Murder Investigation, International Murder Mysteries, Peru
Published: 2023-04-25T05:00:00+00:00

9

T he bus ride to Aguas Calientes was intense in and of itself. We wove around tiny roads and passed other buses with inches to spare between them and us, and us and a drop to our death. I tried to relax, but every time the bus swayed slightly, I gripped the armrests so tightly that by the time we got off the bus and into the rickety cars Antonio had arranged, my hands hurt almost as badly as my legs.

As I climbed into the back seat of my ride to the village, a 1973 Ford Whatever, I almost cried with relief. These seats actually had cushions. I imagined my pallet beneath me in Achiq’s house and couldn’t wait.

But alas, a midafternoon nap wasn’t in the plans. When we hiked up from where the cars dropped us off below the village, Ivan fell back and walked with Beattie, Hildy, Link, and me while Frank kept a quicker pace with Wilamena, Bennett, and the Floreses. “Boone checked in last night. They got a lead on the quipus.”

“Whoa,” Beattie said. “What kind of lead?”

“Apparently, two quipus just went up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York,” Ivan said. “Our people are going to be at that auction with documents from the villagers here about their provenance.”

“The villagers have papers?” I asked. “Wow.”

“Yep, they are simple people but not stupid ones. Once they learned that their quipus were among the oldest surviving, they took the pieces to Lima and had them formerly appraised. They have documentation of ownership and photographs. Sotheby’s will turn them over before they get sold.”

“Nice,” Link said. “So, now we just have to solve two murders.”

I looked ahead to where Wilamena and her brother were just going over the hill to the village. I didn’t have a good feeling about that situation at all, but I hoped maybe Ivan and Frank had been able to get some information about the murders from the siblings as they’d hiked.

“Did they say anything about Marcus and Delaney?” Hildy asked as if she was reading my mind.

“Not a word,” Ivan said. “It was kind of weird. We even asked them directly and tried to give them a chance to talk about their friends. No insinuations or anything, but neither of them said a word. Just told us they wanted to grieve in their own way.”

Link nodded. “It was strange. I mean, we didn’t know the two boys well, but we did know them. And in my experience, it’s sometimes easier to talk about people you’ve lost with people who knew them but not as well as you did. It’s like you’re carrying the grief out and away from you instead of recycling it with close friends.” They shook their heads. “But nothing. Not a word.”

That felt odd to me, too, but then I didn’t know these two kids very well, and what I did know made me think they were so self-absorbed they might not have even needed to grieve at all. I

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