“Polymath. Oh, Brick, Ed’s a teddy bear and what motive could he have? None of us earn a fortune, so we could all be suspected for mercenary reasons. And don’t forget, Ed Dobbs proposed securing your services and supported me in the effort.”
“Doc Dobbs has got no other motive that I know of, but my detective instincts say I oughta go snoop for one.”
The next day, the symposium met in this old stucco-and-red-tile house a ten-minute taxi ride from the hotel. It’d been converted into a private library and our group was given permission to pore over some moldy papers. There was a tapas bar directly across from it. I saw that as an omen that my luck was gonna do a one-eighty.
Our plan was for Darla to invite Dr. Edwin Dobbs on over for morning coffee. I waited, enjoying a savory selection of tapas of the cholesterol persuasion with my java. There was no law saying I had to have a blueberry muffin.
They came in and Darla said, “Ed’s panel, The Elemental Columbus: Businessman and Explorer, was wonderful.”
“Cool,” I said.
“Darla tells me you have a progress report,” Dobbs said to me as they sat.
“I’ve been working closely with the policía. We may be near a breakthrough,” I lied.
“Excellent,” Dobbs said, munching a pastry. “May I ask what?”
“Kind of like Nixon and the White House tapes, they just learned that the Seville cathedral automatically records all phone calls. The cops are bragging that their voiceprint setup is second to none.”
“Voiceprint?” Dobbs said. “The technology that matches a person to a voice?”
“There you go. It’s on the same principle as fingerprints. They detect X number of points and it’s gotcha.”
I raised my voice for “gotcha,” and if my eyes weren’t tricking me, Dr. Edwin Dobbs flinched.
I whipped out this cheesy little tape recorder I’d bought on my way there and said, “Darla, you go first.”
Dobbs laughed. “Wasn’t the caller male?”
I looked at him.
“Was that ever made clear?” I asked, aware that it was. He didn’t answer or hold my gaze. “A voice can be big-time disguised. Darla, please.”
“And say what, Brick?”
“Don’t matter as long as you talk for forty to sixty seconds,” I said, winging it and checking my watch. “That’s what the computer software says you gotta do.”
Darla recited one of those love poems by what’s-her-name, that Dickinson or Dickerson gal. She liked to rattle them off to me at night when we were snuggling. Don’t know what they mean, but they sure are pretty.
“Thanks, Darla. Professor Dobbs,” I said, aiming the machine at him. “You’re up.”
Dobbs slapped a plump paw on my recorder. “No, not yet. I approve of your initiative and will cooperate fully. The testing will be counterproductive, however, unless done under controlled conditions with the proper law-enforcement authorities present.”
“Well, okay, yeah. Hey, I was just trying to get a jump on the situation. The cops are taking the slant that Bryce and Neil paid somebody in the symposium to make the calls, to hype book sales. I’m meeting with detectives this afternoon. They indicated they’d like to get the show on the road, preferably tonight at the hotel,” I bluffed.
“For that I would be quite amenable,” Dobbs said. “I shall be at the head of the line to exonerate myself.”
But you know what? Darla said that Dobbs didn’t come back to his panel from lunch. There was a note to us at the hotel desk saying that he’d been called home for a family emergency. Don’t know if the cops had voiceprints in mind for us or anyone else, but the prospect thereof sure lit a fire under that boy. One thing’s for sure, though. There were no more extorting phone calls made.
Darla and I were still puzzling out the Columbus mess and Dr. Edwin Dobbs the day before we were to fly on home.
The police had used a portable X-ray machine on Columbus’s burial receptacle. There were bones in it and their configuration jibed with the records. Whosever bones they were. Nothing had been settled.
We were at an Irish pub across the street from the cathedral, unwinding after they’d wrapped up the last symposium biz. Darla had a salad and I’d scarfed down Irish sausage tapas and French fries like there was no tomorrow. We were holding hands in our booth and drinking dark Irish beer.
“Despite being in denial, Brick, I must accept your hypothesis that Ed Dobbs probably made the phone calls. The timing of his hasty departure is more than suspicious and he has the language skills.”
“Money’s thicker than water.”
“What on earth does that mean, Mr. Cryptic?”
“Beats me, but Dobbs’s book bombed. It stunk up the bookstore shelves and sold, like, twenty-five copies,” I reminded her. “He had to resent this book contract of Bryce and Neil’s, built on a foundation of guano. But those boys made Dobbs an offer he couldn’t refuse. Do this small favor and make enough money to get out of the hole. Hell, Dobbs may even have approached them.”
“Conjecture, Brick.”
“We made Dobbs paranoid and paranoia don’t lie. He restored my lack of faith in humanity.”
“Columbus: A Critical Study on His Origins, Path of Discovery, and Final Years is the standard by which all Columbus books should be judged. Ed Dobbs should be rightfully proud of it.”
“What’s quality got to do with bookstore customers lining up at the cash register?”
“Brick,” Darla said in all seriousness as she stroked my arm. “Not every writer is motivated by the urge to be a bestseller.”
All I could do is shake my head at the naiveness of that remark. “Irregardless, the cops like Dobbs for the phone calls, but good luck with extradition. He must’ve thought I was a dunce. Lobbying me to dig into the situation — he thought I’d make a fiasco of the case.”
Darla kissed my cheek. “As we speak, Ed Dobbs is regretting underestimating you. Whether he’s guilty or innocent, by running away he’s sent his academic career into shambles.”
“Well?” I said.
“Well what?”
“You know what. Is it Chris in the box or isn’t it? Was it ever him? Did Franco dump some bones in there to replace Chris’s bones he gave to Mussolini?”
“We raised some intriguing questions that will be explored. We’re very excited about the possibilities.”
“Between you, me, and the gatepost, this symposium is a boondoggling joyride.”
“No, Brick, it is a scholarly venture.”
I groaned. “Since Dobbs got me assigned to the case, I guess my honorarium’s out the window, huh?”
“Not exactly. I’ve been waiting for the ideal moment to tell you. You’re invited gratis again to our next symposium, should there be one.”
“No cash money?”
“Sorry.”
“Conspiracies give me a headache and we’ve got a barrel full of rotten apples here. I’m used to dealing with one sleazoid at a crack,” I muttered. “Everybody’s off scot-free. There is no justice.”
“There, there,” Darla said, holding my beer to my lips, as if calming a squalling kid. “I haven’t told you this, Brick, but Mary Beth and I have recruited symposium members who are also outraged. We’re drafting a letter to present to Neil and Bryce’s publishers. With any luck, they will withdraw their contract and demand their advance back.”
With any luck, I thought. Good luck with that.
We sat quietly, enjoying each other’s company. Darla finally said, “I have two confessions to make.”
“Give me the easiest one first. I’ll let you know if I wanna hear the other.”
“You were correct about ‘synapse.’ It has a verb form.”