PURCHASE A Corpse For Cuamantla

Alabaster Books
E-book formats

Part I.  THE FIRST DEATH

CHAPTER ONE

Cuamantla was dressed to kill.  The tiny rural village in central Mexico woke up early to prepare for the day’s fiesta.  The central plaza blazed with the patriotic colors of the Mexican flag. Food stalls dotted the square.  Mariachis warmed up their instruments on the ornate bandstand and pyrotechnic arrays littered the village in anticipation of Cinco de Mayo, a festival celebrating the Battle of Puebla where Mexican armies defeated their French invaders nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.
    Across the plaza from the Church, banners of red and white flowers hung from the roof of the single story primary school, headquarters for the day’s activities.  The festooned building housed two separate but equal primary schools.  Miguel Menéndez directed the afternoon school and Pedro García led the morning school.
    Pedro García’s day also began early—with an ultimatum from his live-in lover followed by a surprise visit from his wife.  Unlike the triumphant Mexican Army, Pedro suffered a defeat in both skirmishes. Always the optimist he blew it off, preferring to focus on the future.  He’d win in the end, he thought, he always did.
    Pedro García remained an optimist throughout the morning, even as he stood in the rose garden behind the primary school staring down the barrel of a gun.  A gun?   This must be a joke. Pedro laughed out loud.
    “Are you crazy?  Go ahead, shoot me,” he said. 
    The killer took him at his word.

Anna Merino’s day should have begun early in the village of Santa Cruz Belén where she lived for the past six months, but her alarm clock betrayed her.  If it weren’t for the ray of sunlight streaming between her metal courtyard doors she might have slept the day away.  The beam pierced her eyelids transforming night into day and sleep into full-fledged angst.  Bolting from bed in a panic, she rushed through her morning routine in a desperate attempt to recoup lost time.
    Early in the afternoon of the previous day, Miguel Menéndez, Co-director of the day’s fiesta, reminded teachers at both the morning and afternoon schools that El Cinco de Mayo fiesta would run on schedule.
    “You’re planning to film the fiesta as part of your research, right Maestra?” he asked Anna in front of everyone.
    “Of course,” Anna told him, promising a copy of the film as her gift to the school.
    “Then you’ll need to be here no later than seven,” he told her in his school director’s voice.
    She’d be lucky to make it by eight.

Anthropologists don’t oversleep on their first fiesta day, Anna fumed, as the Tlaxcala bus neared the city of Apizaco. The ten-mile bus ride slower than usual on this busy holiday did nothing to reduce her anxiety levels, especially since she still had a taxi to catch for the last leg of her morning journey.  She checked her watch as if knowing the time could hurry the trip.  Miguel will never let me live this down, she thought.  She began to regret every remark she ever made to him about Mexican time.
    The bus lurched to a stop on the edge of the Apizaco plaza, and Anna elbowed her way to the front avoiding the live chicken head jutting from the market basket on the aisle floor.  The doors slid open and she hit the sidewalk at a dead run jogging the few short blocks to the Cuamantla taxi stand.  The lead collective had room for one more passenger.  Anna slid into the back seat and caught her breath, congratulating herself on staying in shape despite the bewildering glances her Kali fitness routine attracted in the village of Belén.
    American songs blared from the taxi’s radio as the driver prepared to depart.  Eyeing Anna in his rear view mirror the young man slicked down his hair and peeled out, expertly navigating the busy Apizaco streets.  She turned to look out the window hoping to lessen the distraction and help the driver keep his eyes on the road.
    The air was crisp and clear, a perfect Mexican day, and Anna allowed the stunning scenery to saturate her senses turning her thoughts away from her tardy morning.  A hint of snow covered the peak of the Malinche volcano towering over the Puebla-Tlaxcala plains.  Anna scrutinized the mountain understanding to some degree the power the Tlaxcallan people ascribe to the volcano. Maybe the mountain goddess will cast her good luck spell on me today, Anna mused, feeling no less immune than the locals to its supernatural aura.

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