Legacy Artifacts: The First of the Warm World Mysteries

By Jerry C. Blanton

Sergio Mishioki is a Peruvian anthropologist who has escaped with a national treasure and brought it to the United States. The treasure is Romeo y Julieta, a pair of adolescent mummies, and must be found as soon as possible.

After the Peruvian consul in Miami hires PI Buck Jaspers to locate the mummies and return them to Peru, he sets out to find Mishioki and the treasure. Using all the operatives at his disposal, Buck narrows the hunt to the Orlando area and shares evidence with an ICE agent on the same trail. After Buck learns that Mishioki loves sports car racing, eating Peruvian food, and chasing young women, he stakes out restaurants and nightclubs, poses as a racecar driver, and investigates reclusive billionaires—the only ones who can afford to keep the mummies in good condition. In order to inspect the estates of possible suspects, Buck employs a swamp rat to take Buck and his crew through the wetlands on an airboat. But just as he gets closer to the mummies and Mishioki, Buck’s operatives reveal a disturbing reality of the person behind the theft.

In this exciting mystery, the chase is on for PI Buck Jaspers after an anthropologist steals mummies from Peru and brings them to Florida.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663214911

Jerry C. Blanton

Jerry C. Blanton has taught high school English, managed a bookstore, served as an academic dean, and worked as a copywriter, proofreader, English professor, and writer. He has written more than thirty books that include mysteries, short story collections, sci-fi novels, and poetry. Jerry has three children and currently resides in Homestead, Florida. For more about Jerry and his writing, visit him at www.authorjerrycblanton.com.

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Copyright © 2021 Jerry C. Blanton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-1490-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-1492-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-1491-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020925086

iUniverse rev. date: 01/15/2021

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Buck and Romeo y Julieta

Chapter 2 Buck and New Operatives

Chapter 3 Buck and Boz

Chapter 4 Victor and Mo

Chapter 5 Buck and Boz

Chapter 6 Mo and Mishioki

Chapter 7 Buck and Noble

Chapter 8 Shamir and Iskander

Chapter 9 Buck and Mishioki

Chapter 10 Buck and Others

1

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BUCK AND ROMEO

Y JULIETA

My boot was stuck in black muck again. As I pulled it out and scraped the mud off, I ruminated. How did I find myself in Central Florida, chasing an anthropologist, looking for wealthy recluses, driving in road races, and traipsing through swamps filled with alligators and pythons? It had begun with a visit from a Peruvian consul.

Senor Jaspers, said the Peruvian consul sitting in my office at our investigative agency headquarters at 1223 Bolero Street, South Miami. My country and I turn to you in our desperation. I have heard from reliable sources that you are trustworthy and brave. We’ve also heard that you are a good salvager, proficient at recovering lost items.

A visitor from Peru would appreciate the Hispanic appearance of the Jaspers, Marquez, Derling, and Puentes Investigative Agency’s building—white stucco with red clay tiles on the roof—and the offices with their Spanish tile floors, jalousie windows, and tropical plants. He would also appreciate the Cuban coffee that circulated in the early morning in coladas and the convenience of a bilingual staff.

I was proud of the agency that Ruben Marquez, a Cuban American, and I had started some twenty years earlier as young former police officers. As the agency had grown and prospered, it had developed a reputation for solving complicated mysteries and recovering lost items, from small pieces of precious jewelry to expensive yachts. One time, in the case that I called Windfall, we even recovered money that had been lost by some local organized crime bosses.

I’ve had some success in that area, I replied. What do you need to recover?

He blinked and said, Mummies. His soft, flabby, bureaucratic body was ensconced in a chair, tented in a white shirt, navy blue tie, and dark blue pin-striped suit. Obviously he was not into aerobics, strength training, or macrobiotics—all those things that we do to make ourselves stronger, more durable, and longer lasting.

Mummies? I asked. What kind of mummies?

"A pair of adolescents. Unfortunately we do not know their true names, but they have a special significance for Peruvians. The mummies were found bound together in death, but the girl and boy are wearing the colors and patterns of two different tribes that were often at war with each other. So why were they buried together? We call them the Romeo y Julieta de Los Andes, for despite the enmity between their two tribes, they fell in love with each other. Perhaps the boy was a prince of one tribe and the girl was a princess of the other, for their hair was coiffed in the styles of the elite. They were arrayed in the finest yellow and red guanaco wool cumbi textiles, which were reserved for the nobility, and a small treasure was buried with them, so it is likely that they were honored by both tribes."

How did they arrive in Florida?

"We are not certain that they are in Florida. They were being prepared for exhibit, along with the treasure found with them, in a national museum in Lima. The exhibit was well publicized and eagerly anticipated, but a few weeks ago the mummies disappeared along with one of the museum assistants. We know from his passport and visa that he is somewhere in Florida."

I leaned back in my chair, folded my arms behind my head, and asked, Who would want these mummies?

We think it is a wealthy American who wanted them for his own collection since they could not be publicly displayed without drawing unwanted attention. We think the assistant came with him to care for the mummies.

What kind of special care do the mummies need?

They need a cold, arid, low-oxygen environment, as exists in the high Andean cordillera. They are not preserved like Egyptian mummies through an embalming process.

Do you have a photo of the museum assistant?

Then you will take the case?

Yes, it interests me. But first, how much are these mummies worth?

The diplomat paused for a moment, signaling that he didn’t want to reveal too much. The mummies themselves are priceless, for they are a national treasure. The treasure that was buried with them might be worth a quarter of a million.

Dollars?

Yes, but that is just a general guess.

I asked, What treasure was buried with them?

A gold llama, and a khipu with red, gold, and silver threads tied in a way that indicates that the girl and boy were nobility. The girl wore gold bracelets and a gold necklace, the boy wore a gold nose ring and a gold necklace, and they both wore heavy gold earrings and gold sun god masks with turquoise eyes and embellishments. Also in the grave were a gold tumis with turquoise embellishments, beautiful huaco pottery containing their food for the journey to the afterlife, and pipes and cymbals so they could sing and dance together, along with gold and silver pumas, panthers, condors, herons, and eagles.

And all that would be valued at how much?

The diplomat said, Three to four million soles.

So it could be worth around a million dollars?

You know the exchange rate. He smiled, conceding the truth.

Yes, I do. My fee will be three hundred thousand dollars plus expenses. If the treasure had been worth what he had initially indicated, I would have set the fee at fifty thousand dollars, but 25 percent was standard.

Fine, he agreed.

I should warn you that the expenses could be high. I might have to bring in several specialists and work outside the immediate Miami area.

That’s not a problem. We are happy that you have taken the case. He pulled a folder from his briefcase and handed it to me. "Here are photos and a bio of the assistant, along with photos of Romeo y Julieta and the treasure that was found with them."

I asked, Why aren’t your own people working on this? Peru has a good record of tracking down antiquities that have been pirated out of the country.

"Our agents are working on this. But you know Florida better than they do, and this is urgent."

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also pretty good at this type of investigation. Have you contacted them?

The diplomat replied, Yes, but under your new regime, ICE has been told to focus on deporting people who are in the country illegally. That’s where the money and manpower are going, so other investigations are on hold indefinitely.

Very well. See our office manager, Caridad Puentes, on your way out. You’ll need to give her a fifteen-thousand-dollar retainer, sign our contract, and arrange to deliver the necessary items to her care.

Gracias, Senor Jaspers. Muchas gracias.

You can call me Buck. Everybody else does.

Thank you, Buck.

The diplomat raised his body from the chair with some effort and ambled out the door toward our front desk. Given his physical condition, he would be lucky to survive to draw the Peruvian equivalent of Social Security. I wasn’t much younger, but watching him waddle away made me glad that I still worked out and could run up a flight of stairs and swim twenty laps in a swimming pool.

As I examined the photos and bio, I speculated on where a wealthy collector of mummies might live in Florida, but the reality was that he