Pirate Vishnu (A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery) (8 page)

“I have no idea. I just know he’s dead.”

“This is
awesome
,” she said.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Well, it’s not awesome that he’s dead. But everybody dies. And this means it’s a real treasure map. You couldn’t have asked for better proof. But really, I’m not going to lose sleep over some lawyer capitalist pig being killed after living a long life.”

“He wasn’t—”

“Jaya, you have a
treasure map
from a
dead man
. You don’t have the luxury of being generous. You need to start figuring out exactly who this man was—and what else he was hiding.”

Chapter 11

“You should write a memoir once you find the treasure,” Tamarind said. She even had a straight face as she said it. “And this time, I’m in.”

“There is no
in
.”

“Who do you think would play me in the movie?” Tamarind asked. “I don’t think there are many actresses who could pull it off. Hollywood actresses don’t have decent bone structure like mine. Aishwarya Rai would play you, of course. She looks half-white to me, no matter what those Miss Universe judges said.”

“She can’t do an American accent,” I said. “Wait. Stop. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. I’m not writing a memoir. I don’t know what I’m doing, but whatever it is, it’s not that. I need to figure out what’s going on. There’s a missing treasure, incomplete information, inconsistent facts, an unsubstantiated accusation against Uncle Anand, and I’ve ended up with a Tamil treasure map.”

“Very nicely summed up. You’ve got the professorial thing perfected, Jaya.”

“Glad you approve,” I said, taking a bite out of my peanut butter, jelly, and pickle sandwich.

“And I’m glad you’re not so broken up about dear old Steven that you can’t eat.”

“My starving to death won’t do anyone any good,” I said, but at the same time I set down the sandwich. Even though I’d dealt with a murderer earlier that summer, it wasn’t any easier this time. Death could be tragic. But murder was deeply unsettling.

“What did he tell you about this map?” Tamarind asked, staring at the faded piece of paper.

“Sorry, what?” I willed myself to focus.

“The map,” Tamarind said. “What exactly did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” I said. “He let it speak for itself. He said he’d tell me more when I saw him next.”

“And then he…”

“Exactly. He was killed, so I don’t know what he was going to tell me.”

“He wanted those letters,” Tamarind murmured. “He thought they’d tell him something.”

“He thought I’d know where to find them. And he was right.”

We ate our sandwiches in silence for a few minutes while looking at the map. A solitary student wandered into the courtyard and sat down in the far corner from us. Tamarind scowled in his direction as he opened his laptop, but the guy wasn’t looking our way.

“Why did he need those letters if he had this treasure map?” Tamarind asked in a whisper.

“Well, it’s not the most straightforward of treasure maps,” I admitted.

“But the X mark—”

“It doesn’t lead to a treasure,” I said. “At least not one Steven Healy could find with just the map.” I shook my head. “There was something he wasn’t telling me about how he knew it was Anand Paravar who drew this map. I should have pressed for more information, but I had no idea I’d never see him again.”

“But you know you can believe him about the map,” Tamarind said.

“Why? He lied to me about his motives for finding the treasure—he even lied about the treasure itself.”

“But,” Tamarind said, “he believed Anand’s letters were the key to cracking the map. So he believed it was Anand’s map.”

“I’ve been thinking about something else,” I said. “Why would Anand have needed to draw a treasure map in the first place?”

“Um, because he was a thief who needed to show where he hid his treasure. Mwa-ha-ha.”

“That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t think he did it.”

Tamarind sighed dramatically, pouting her bright red lips. “Sticking up for the clan is all well and good, Jaya, but don’t let it cloud your professional judgment.”

“If you’d heard the way my mom talked about him, you’d find it hard to believe, too. He was this amazing figure to her grandfather. He was involved in a revolutionary group working for Indian independence. He left home in 1900 to see the world—supposedly a wanted man for his involvement in the cause—and sent money home while he was at it.”

“Sounds like a thief to me.”

“Even if I disregard all the family lore,
the dates don’t fit
. He left home in 1900 and arrived in San Francisco a couple of years later. He was still living here in 1906—nowhere near India. There weren’t flights to pop over to the other side of the world in those days. He wrote his brother a letter every week. And he didn’t leave San Francisco once he got here.”

“Okay,” Tamarind said. “I’ll admit that’s some pretty good evidence.
If
it’s true.”

“I need to start with the dates,” I said. “If this treasure is a big enough deal to get someone killed over a hundred years later, there has to be a record of it. Does the library have turn-of-the-century newspaper archives?”

“Not ours,” Tamarind said. “But the San Francisco library’s history center has digitized all the local papers, so if you’ve got a library card you can view the PDFs online. You can use one of the computer stations to check it out while I fondle the treasure map.”

“I’ll be back to check out the newspaper archives in a little bit,” I said. “First I’m going to see Naveen.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?”

“He’s the best person to ask about Tamil writing and translations.”

“I suppose so,” Tamarind said. “See you later—if you survive, that is.”

“He’s not
that
bad.”

“It’s your funeral,” Tamarind said, shaking her blue-haired head. “I’m going to have that cigarette now.”

“What about him?” I motioned to the student wearing headphones and typing away at his laptop.

“He’s not going to narc on me if he knows what’s good for him.”

I left Tamarind to her cigarette and walked across the quad to Naveen Krishnan’s office. I shared Tamarind’s feelings and wished I didn’t need to ask for his help, but he was the best person to see.

Many kids with parents from two different regions of India speak English at home because it’s the common language between parents. Naveen had an ear for languages, and in addition to the two languages his parents spoke, he also knew how to speak and read three other Indian languages that I knew of. Tamil was one of them. My brother Mahilan and I attended an English-language school back in Goa, so there was no need for us to formally learn other languages. We learned some Hindi and Marathi through school and being out in the community, but when we relocated to Berkeley after my mother’s death, I didn’t see another written Indian language until college.

Naveen and I had always been cordial with each other, but I was under no illusion that we were friends. Though we’re in the same department, we approached history differently. He focused on linguistic cultural histories, and I delved into the movements of the European colonizing forces in India. We were both well-equipped to teach basic undergraduate world history and Indian history courses, so we both expected only one of us to get tenure. If this had been a normal project, I wouldn’t have asked for his help.

Within minutes I stood in Naveen’s doorway. His office was nothing like mine. Perfectly trimmed miniature bonsai trees in pristine white pots were aligned along the window sill. Every book and journal had its place in the metallic bookshelves. How could anyone think in such precise order? History was messy.

The office matched the man. Naveen was a few years younger than me, having started college at eighteen and finished his PhD in only four years. I finished my advanced degree in five years, but I didn’t begin college until I was twenty, four years after I’d finished high school at sixteen. Though Naveen was young, he dressed more formally than any of the other history professors. I don’t think I’d ever seen him without a three-piece suit, and he was usually drinking tea—and never out of a paper cup. His thick black hair was cut in a short, professional style that reminded me of the 1950s. Naveen wore a light brown flannel suit today. It was a warm day, so the jacket hung on a coat rack, but he wore the matching vest over his dress shirt. A mug of tea rested at his elbow.

“So nice to see you, Jaya,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again. It sounded like you were too busy chasing Scottish legends to bother with real academic research.”

“Good to see you, too,” I said, forcing myself to remain civil.

“It’s too bad you can’t do your own translations,” Naveen said. “You’re lucky I have a little extra time right now to help you with your work. The dean asked me to lead a symposium, so I’m going to be quite busy. I won’t be able to bail you out in the future.”

“This isn’t for my work,” I said. The dean had asked a second-year assistant professor to lead a symposium? I knew Naveen would want me to ask more about it, so I didn’t.

“No?”

“I can do my own research perfectly well,” I said. “This is a personal project.”

“Have a seat,” he said, frowning and taking a sip of his tea. “What was it you wanted me to translate?”

I painted a smile on my face and sat down.

“A Tamil treasure map.”

Tea sloshed over the side of Naveen’s mug, falling onto the uncluttered surface of the desk. He pushed his chair back to avoid spilling tea all over his pristine suit.

“A
treasure
map?” he asked, using a tissue from a white box that matched the bonsai plants to wipe up every drop of the spill. “Surely you’re joking.”

“I’m not.” I spread the map across the desk.

Naveen stared at me for a moment before pulling a magnifying glass out of his desk drawer to study the map more carefully. For the next several minutes, he didn’t speak.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“Long story,” I said. “Can you translate it or not?”

“You may have noticed,” he said, “it’s already been translated.”

“I can see that. But I don’t know if the person who translated it was as skilled a linguist as you.”

Naveen rested his elbows on the desk and gave me a thin-lipped smile. I didn’t really want to get into the story of the map, so I hoped appealing to his ego would do the trick.

“The translations are good,” he said.

“You’re sure?” I’d been hoping the previous translator had missed something.

“You sound disappointed,” he said, the slight smile on his face growing stronger.

“None of the writing refers to Chinese fishing nets?” I asked.

“Why would it say anything like that?”

I pointed to the illustration.

Naveen smirked at me. “Do you need a refresher course in California history? I’m sure one of our colleagues would let you sit in on their undergraduate class.”

I ignored the insult. “What about the top of the map. Why is it
My Cities
instead of
My City
? I know Tamil is a complex language, so maybe—”

“I know when something is plural,” Naveen snapped. He narrowed his eyes and looked back at the map. “This is formal Tamil, but there’s no mistake.”

“What about these things that look like place names.
MP Craft Emporium
and
The Anchored Enchantress
. I looked them up and they don’t exist.”

“This thing probably isn’t even real. Who draws a treasure map?”

“You’re probably right,” I said.

“I usually am.”

I stood up. “Thanks for the help, Naveen.”

I knew a dead end when I ran into one. I didn’t believe the map itself was a dead end, but Naveen had done all he could to help. There was something beyond the language that I was missing with the map.

Disappointed that a second opinion about the map’s translation hadn’t gotten me any further, I trudged across campus to meet Tamarind back at the library.

“The translations are a dead end,” I told her, then found an open computer station near the main information desk where Tamarind was working that afternoon. I logged into the San Francisco Public Library’s database and found the historic newspaper archive. Searches for Anand Selvam Paravar and Anand Paravar had zero search results in the newspaper. Steven Healy told me Anand stole a treasure around 1906. Even if the Great Earthquake hadn’t killed him as I’d believed, he was killed sometime around then, so I focused on scanning newspapers that ran before April of that year.

Without knowing what I was looking for, I methodically skimmed headlines, starting at the beginning of 1906. The first hour went pretty well. I didn’t find anything, but I liked getting into the groove of research. I let myself smile at a few entertaining headlines, but stayed focused on my task.

The second hour was the tough one. I was no longer under any illusion that this would be a quick search. But when there’s a murdered man in the back of your mind and you don’t know what’s going on, it’s tough to tell yourself that you can take a break.

A figure caught my attention, distracting me from the scanned newspapers. Startled, I saw Naveen heading straight for me. Not a pleasant sight. I’d had enough of him for one day.

“There you are,” he said. “I don’t know why you can’t do research in your office like a sane person.”

Tamarind cleared her throat from her nearby desk and shot Naveen a dirty look.

“You’re not doing Jaya any favors,” Naveen said to Tamarind before turning to me. “You don’t win a prize for being a good team player.”

“Since when is this a competition?” Tamarind said. “Oh wait. I forgot. For men with small—”

“What did you want to see me about?” I cut in.

“Yes, well…” He was still looking expectantly at Tamarind. “Well, Jaya seemed so
desperate
for my help, I felt the least I could do was spend a few minutes longer to double-check my initial reaction to some translations she brought me.”

“I know about the map, Krishnan,” Tamarind said.

“Shh!” A library patron glared at us.

“Honey,” Tamarind said, raising her voice, “this is the main hall of a research library.”

“Yes, well,” Naveen said, lowering his voice, “I consulted a reference book on formal Tamil, and I was right. You seemed to doubt me, Jaya, so I wanted to let you know I was, in fact, correct.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks, Naveen,” Tamarind added. “I’m sure Jaya will be forever grateful.”

He didn’t seem to catch the sarcasm in Tamarind’s voice. He smiled and left.

“That guy,” Tamarind said, watching Naveen walk out the library doors, “would be really delicious if he wasn’t such a creep.”