The Jaguar God (A Cash Cassidy Adventure Book 5) Read online

  Marcelus Hardrada, director of the affluent special interests group, H&H Foundations, worked incessantly with the museum’s board members and general management to design the event in a way he saw as befitting the exhibit. He decided that keeping the museum open for 24 hours on the opening night would allow art lovers and true enthusiasts the opportunity to plan a “meditative visit” to see the exhibit at whichever hour they pleased. In doing so, they could experience it without the crowds that were destined to swarm the museum's galleries during regular opening hours.

  The response in Heraklion is expected to be hardly atypical. Everywhere the collection has traveled so far—not only in Europe but Miami, Tokyo, Paris, London, Dallas, Washington D.C., Toronto and New York—it has set records of one sort or another and got the highest accolades and best reviews from even the most cynical of critics in the business. To date, over six million recorded visitors have seen the show, and over twenty million dollars’ worth of related memorabilia in the form of posters, catalogs, postcards and other typical museum gift shop items have been sold. The show is also reputed to have brought in more than fifty million dollars in total rental fees for H&H Foundations.

  As traveling shows go, the Hardrada exhibition has been one of the most successful in museum history. In fact, a recent survey has it as ranked just behind “The Treasures of Tutankhamen.” The exhibition of priceless Egyptian artifacts was considered way ahead of its time and comprised of a seven-city tour of the United States recorded as drawing more than eight million people between November 1976 and September 1979. So, why is the Hardrada exhibition expected to do so well? Gianna K. Louverdis, who is the current curator of the Historical Museum of Crete, says, “Despite the considerable grandeur of some of the pieces, nothing included in the catalog was allowed to overwhelm the other pieces. Even though the show is quite large, the number of pieces—seventy-five—was just right for the space and to allow for each era depicted to completely captivate the viewer. It wasn’t too many to overwhelm visitors, not too few as to bore them or leave them wanting too much more.”

  The show also had a built-in once-in-a-lifetime factor. “Among the planners and the museums that are scheduled, it has gained the reputation for being an ‘Elizabeth Bennett,’” said Justin Mercia, director of events for H&H Foundations. “Ever elusive and rather particular about how and where it should be presented.” He went on to say, “The mystery of having all these hidden treasures, these major masterpieces and objects thought lost to the modern world forever has given the show a lot of serious buzz- worthiness.”

  “Now that gives new meaning to our Pandora’s box joke,” Laura said as she folded the newspaper and put it down on the table beside her. Cash immediately snatched it up and re-read the article quickly.

  After a few moments of silence, she too closed the paper then she looked up at Laura.

  “Indeed, but it’s a jaguar god that lies at the bottom of Cotta’s box, isn’t it?”

  The pieces of the first puzzle were starting to fit together but Cash would have to work them out later. She wasn’t sure where any of it would eventually fit and she didn’t know how any of it would play in yet. Somehow the joke from the movie still played in her mind as well. She would have to figure all of it out when she was alone. She had a feeling trying to do that with Laura still present might lead to more trouble than it would be worth.

  Chapter Two

  Two days later, Cash was on the bike to Molyvos. There was a car with the house, but she and Tim had flown in a couple of bikes when they came down. They both liked their cycling and Cash had obtained a bike that wouldn’t be out of place anywhere on the European mainland. When she knew they would be going to Lesbos, she had bought another and brought it along.

  It was kind of a heavy granny bike, with a sturdy baggage carrier on which was bolted a seat. Paddy was very happy in his seat, perhaps slightly happier now than he was with it in their home in Barry. That had more to do with the weather than with whether he liked being on the bike. It allowed him to see and hear and smell everything, rather than sit in the back of the car with nothing.

  It was some six and a half miles from the cottage to the town of Molyvos and Cash covered it within twenty minutes.

  She was meeting Laura at the harbor of Molyvos. The young woman was staying in some sort of a hostel there, though she had not specified exactly where. Not that Cash cared; she could spend a long time in that town. Mithymna, as the town was also known, was a small town, even smaller than most places in the Welsh Valleys. On the hill overlooking the town was an old Genoese fortress and the town itself was old. Cash liked old places. There was a certain atmosphere there she liked too.

  Several times, Tim and Cash had gone to the island's capital Mytilini for shopping or just to wander its streets, but she still much preferred this small harbor town over it. Mytilini was a maze of neoclassical buildings, with some modern sites. Tim loved the place for it, but Cash didn’t like it at all. It was probably the atmosphere there; the huge number of refugees and migrants having flowed into that city in particular—and the stress that it brought with it—put Cash off. When she had Paddy with her, she disliked that sort of stress. She wasn’t overly protective, she reckoned, but Cash also realized she had changed since her quest for the Falcon Cloak and becoming a mother.

  The harbor was really slightly outside the town, on the south side of the headland that jutted out from the island. The street that ran to it was lined with pastel and white colored houses with red tiled roofs. Arriving closer to the harbor, the houses fell into a single line, so the gardens and the hillside behind it were visible through the gaps between them. Cash maneuvered the bike into a spot on the edge of the parking lot and took Paddy's helmet off. She took him from his seat and set him down on the ground. He looked around and immediately seemed like he was ready to go explore.

  “Don't even think about it,” Cash warned him. Paddy just looked up at his mother. It was almost as though he was daring her to stop him.

  Cash locked the bike and picked him up before he could wander off. She lifted him onto her shoulders, where he could sit happily and watch everything going on around them, and then she walked to the end of the harbor. There was a restaurant there with outside seating where she could look out over the moored yachts.

  She let Paddy down from her shoulders and set him on a white plastic seat, and then she took the seat beside him. A waiter came out to ask Cash for her order and she asked him for a cup of cappuccino and a glass of orange juice for the boy. She looked out over the quays but didn’t see the person she was meeting. She pulled her tablet out of the diaper bag and began looking through some more articles she had found while doing her research. The next story was going to be about the current socio-political climate in Europe, she knew that much, but it was still quite a way from being a definitive topic. She definitely needed to find out more. That was the main reason she was meeting with Laura that afternoon. With her being in Greece for quite a bit longer than Cash and Tim had and also staying in Molyvos, she was bound to be a ready source of information about modern Greek culture, the true state of the country’s financial sector and the ripple effects that Greece’s failing economy and refugee crisis was having on the rest of Europe.

  Suddenly, there was a shout. Someone called her name and Cash looked up and glanced around. She couldn’t see where the voice came from. Then her name was called again. Cash gazed around again and then saw a blonde woman jump from a yacht onto the dockside. The moment she started running, Cash recognized Laura. Just as the waiter brought the juice and the coffee out, Laura pulled another chair up and sat down.

  “So how's it going?” she asked Cash.

  “Pretty good, actually. D'you want something?” Cash asked as she looked through her purse for some euros to pay the waiter with.

  “I’ll have the same,” she said. She gave a nod to the waiter and pointed at Cash's cappuccino.

  They exchanged some small talk for a while as they waited for the second cup to arrive. Paddy was playing happily with a toy and drinking his juice through a straw. Cash kept a close eye on him. He seemed to be managing okay but she wasn’t sure she would have to transfer the juice to his sippy cup.

  As the second cappuccino arrived, Laura asked what Cash had wanted to talk about.

  “The Cotta Jaguar,” Cash stated simply.

  “Seriously? That’s a joke right?” Laura smiled at her as she poured a sugar into the froth.

  “No. What would be a joke is if I’d said Pandora’s box.”

  “You mean, first woman on Earth, wife to Prometheus's brother? When Prometheus stole fire from the gods, they gave her a box, she opened it and every evil flew into the world.”

  “And she closed it, but at the bottom of the box was hope.”

  “First of all, the Greek word is pithos, which means jar, not box. So most likely you'd be looking for an urn or an amphora. And it could be anywhere.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come on then, Cash. Jokes aside, what do you actually want to write about?”

  Cash frowned. “How do you mean? I’m serious about the statue. I assume there’s some myth attached to it since jaguars typically aren’t native to Europe. I want to assume that it was perhaps a caracal or a lynx.”

  “You’re probably right on all those assumptions but one thing that was very easy to overlook in the history is that Lucius was not Aurelia’s father; that her real father was actually thought to be his brother, Marcus. There isn’t much recorded about Marcus, her uncle, but there’s plenty to fill that gap about Marcus, her half-brother. The myth that I think you’ll find interesting is one about the older Marcus being the first Roman to cross the Atlantic.”

  “What? But that’s impossible!”

/>   “Why would you think that?”

  “The first trans-Atlantic journey that history speculates at wasn’t until Leif Erikson supposedly sailed to America somewhere around 1000 A.D.”

  “Well, wouldn’t that make it a really awesome myth then?”

  “I guess so,” Cash replied, sipping her coffee. She was trying to put the puzzle pieces together in her mind, feeling even more lost about her story idea than before.

  “Don’t look so worried. After all, myths are usually allegorical. If the jaguar tale strikes you so much, you can take the idea in any direction you want to without ever being wrong, so to speak.”

  Cash grinned. She had not studied that bit yet, but she was pretty sure she knew the allegorical meaning of it without even beginning to research yet. She looked at Paddy and knew where the hope part came from too.

  “Suppose it is real, though?”

  “What?”

  “The myth!”

  “Oh, give freaking Pandora and her box a rest, why don’t you? I thought you were onto that Jaguar God now.”

  “I am! I meant the Marcus myth.”

  Laura grinned as Cash gave her a strange look. “I don't suppose it’s real, but it's an intriguing thought.”

  “It would be intriguing, wouldn’t it?” Cash relented, putting her cup to her lips again. She sighed and then continued, “Still, I’m not convinced it’s book material, but it’s definitely investigation worthy in my opinion. I’m going to be out and about around Greece from now on. The filthy, unsafe beach and the monotony of the cottage are fraying my edges a bit. I’m thinking of looking into this Jaguar God as you called it. Looks like I’m dealing with Cotta’s box now.”

  “Oh, that’s hilarious!” Laura said, laughing loudly. “Too bad I don’t have a bad movie joke for that one.”

  Laura pursed her lips and looked up, thinking. She sipped her coffee and as she set it back down, she looked at Cash again. “So you think you can prove Marcus crossed the Atlantic, made it to the jungles of the Americas and later adopted the jaguar as his family totem?”

  Cash nodded and picked up a car from the ground, where Paddy had dropped it. She had noticed him glancing at her and then at it, looking as though he would start crying if she didn’t retrieve it for him soon.

  “That's kind of an impossible search, though, isn't it? Kind of hard to prove?” Cash said, not able to suppress a smile. “Even in fiction, that'd be a very hard sell.”

  Laura nodded, smiling as well. “Yes. Yes, it would be. But I’ve read all your books, Cash Cassidy, as well as the earlier ones under that pen name of yours; let’s just say believability has never been a hurdle for you. Fiction or not.”

  Cash looked up, smiling. She appreciated the comment from such a seemingly well-read person. It was true she had written some very historical books under a pen name and then moved on to using her own name as her adventures had become more bizarre and quite unbelievable despite being terribly real. “If it were ever recorded, where do you think it would have been kept?”

  Laura breathed out heavily. Unconsciously, the air moved her lips; it almost sounded like she was blowing a raspberry.

  “Look, to be clear, even Tacitus supposed it was allegorical. He wrote the most famous accounts of Aurelia’s life stories and did his best to record the history and accomplishments of all her family members during his lifetime. He considered her an ideal Roman matron and thought highly of her. Plutarch described her as a highly intelligent and independent woman; renowned for her beauty and common sense. Aurelia Cotta was a woman who was held in high regard throughout Rome. Needless to say, if she claimed her uncle brought the statue from the Americas, everyone would have believed her.”

  “Quite understandable,” Cash said. She realized Laura had not thought about this before and was trying to think. She could almost see her brain working, not just to come up with an answer, but to put her knowledge into English. She spoke excellent English, but Cash knew how difficult it could be to put things in another language than the one you've learned them in. In this case, she recalled Dutch translations from Greek texts and phrasing things so they made sense in English. “But what if the story was just a distraction? Something to put a focus on Marcus and retract from the scandalous rumors that he may have been her father and not her uncle.”

  “Hmmm. In that case, I'd guess...” Laura began. “I'd guess the oldest cities of Cotta residence is where the family would have had it in their possession then, wouldn't they?”

  Cash nodded. She saw Paddy nod from the corner of her eye. “That makes sense. What's the oldest city?”

  Laura shrugged. “Rome? Athens? Knossos? Hersonissos? The family were notorious travelers; all the men being high ranking diplomatic politician types. But they weren’t senators, mostly praetors. The entire Roman Empire at the time was their home. There's Tyre of course, but I don't think you really want to go there to research.”

  Cash had to think for a moment where Tyre actually was. When she realized it was in Lebanon, she shook her head. “Quite nearby, but no...”

  Laura nodded to the hill. “Aurelia lived in Greece primarily until she was pregnant with her son. Then suspecting it was a boy, they housed themselves for a time in Rome. With the frequent political squabbles there though, it’s thought she went away with her children. Most likely to Corinth, that’s my thinking at least. But perhaps back to Greece, there was a huge settlement with a classical school and many political residences near the shore on the other side of that strait.”

  “There was?” Cash asked.

  Laura nodded. “A Roman one. This whole area was a hotspot for early Greek literature. Not just this island.” Laura finished her cup, nodded to Cash's, which was growing cold. “Ever been to Crete?”

  Cash shook her head. “Only my second time to Greece actually. My husband spent quite a bit of time here when studying. And the house is his parents’. They came here quite often on their holidays. I had a trip here a few years back that I wrote about; one I’d rather much forget honestly.”

  “Is your husband’s family quite interested in the classics?”

  Cash shook her head. “Mother is a historian, just like Tim. Father is just rich.”

  Laura grinned. “There's no such thing as just rich.”

  Cash smiled. “He's an earl. Tim will inherit the title someday. So I guess sometime in the future, I’ll be a countess.”

  “Did you marry him for that?” Laura asked, serious and curious now.

  Cash shook her head. “No. We fell in love at the university. It's been a bit of a journey.”

  Laura nodded, taking the hint. “Your husband’s been to Crete?”

  Cash frowned. “Don't know, actually. Probably did go to Hersonissos.”

  “It could be a nice weekend for the family, if he has time,” Laura said, slightly downcast.

  Cash noticed the change in her. She had joked previously about Laura being a sapphist, but she reckoned this was confirmation. And confirmation Laura might be interested in being something other than friends.

  “Not jealous?” Cash said in a jocular tone. “You can always jump on that yacht of yours and follow.”

  Laura grinned. “Not on my own. And taking the ferry is a lot faster.”

  They kept talking after that, just small talk until Paddy began to complain. Cash dug her phone out and checked the time. “I think it's time to get some afternoon tea into this kid.”

  Laura nodded and got up. “You want to go home for it? I would offer you something, but I don't really have anything. I would have to go shopping first.”

  Cash pursed her lips. “I would almost rather we stay in town and find a nice restaurant. I'm sure you know one.”

  Laura nodded in response. Paddy fussed some more as if to answer the indecisive tone his mother was having.

  “Oh, but Paddy needs his rest. He needs to calm down a bit, eat and sleep before long.”

  “So, you'll be heading home then?”