Free Pirate Vishnu (A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery) by Gigi Pandian

sandwiches this morning so we could have a working lunch.”
    We stepped out into the small, shady courtyard enclosed by the library. Two students were smoking in one corner, but otherwise the concrete courtyard was empty. 
    “I don’t think so,” Tamarind said calmly, yet forcefully, in their direction.
    The students immediately stubbed out their cigarettes. They hurried past the “No Smoking” sign and back into the library.
    “You’d think they’d learn they can’t get away with anything on my watch,” she said to me with an overdramatic sigh. “Kids these days.”
    Tamarind had only finished her library science degree a few years before and wasn’t much older than the “kids” she’d chastised, but in addition to being one of the most brilliant people I’d ever met, her physical presence was an asset at an urban university. Rumor had it that during her interview, she got up to help the security guard deal with a drunken and belligerent man who’d wandered into the library. She possessed the helpful combination of looking big and frightening while at the same time having a genuine desire to help people. She was able to get people to trust her and open up to her. For the few who didn’t, her physical presence was threatening enough to remove the problem.
    “You want a cigarette?” she asked me, pulling a pack from one of the many pockets of her zipper-covered black pants. 
    “Seriously?”
    “What? I’m an authority figure. I can make my own rules.”
    “I’d rather eat.” I sat down on the closest bench. “I’m starving.”
    “Suit yourself.” She put the box of cigarettes back into her bag.
    “You remembered to give me extra pickles,” I said, opening the whole wheat sandwich.
    “Who else eats pickles on their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?” Tamarind said. “Like I’m ever going to forget that. I swear I’d think you were pregnant if you weighed more than a toothpick. Or if I’d ever seen you with a guy besides that hot puppy dog who follows you around while you ignore him.”
    “You mean Sanjay? I really don’t think—”
    “You saying he’s not hot?”
    “Maybe in the traditional sense.”
    “As in the traditional, oh-my-God-my-thighs-are-on-fire sense.”
    “Um, no. He’s like my brother.”
    Tamarind rolled her eyes. “Suit yourself. But I don’t see how you can resist fantasizing about running your fingers through that thick black hair of his. He has it perfectly styled without looking like it’s been styled, you know?” She sighed wistfully. “Now tell me about this treasure or I’ll take away your pickle-flavored PB & J. You seriously have a real-life treasure map?”
    When I’d texted Tamarind the previous night, before Steven was murdered, this whole thing seemed more like a fun, if strange, adventure about a long-dead ancestor. The same sentiment was now evident on Tamarind’s face. I hated to bring someone else into this mess, knowing what it had now become. But since I had told her about the map, she was already involved. I lifted the map from my messenger bag and placed it on the bench between us.
    “Shut. Up.” Tamarind stared at the plastic-covered map without touching it. “This is old. Like, you have the real thing. How did you make this discovery without me knowing about it?”
    “I didn’t find this through my research. There was a man who gave this to me—”
    Tamarind’s dark eyebrows shot up in interest.
    “Not a guy like that . He’s my dad’s age—and he’s dead.”
    Tamarind sat in stunned silence, her face turning a shade paler. “A ghost guy came to see you?” she whispered.
    “Worse than that.”
    “You mean he looked all gross and rotted, like how his body would really look buried in the ground, not like our idealized images of ghosts? God, I always wondered—”
    “Tamarind—”
    “I mean, I always thought movies idealized death. Ghosts are always so ethereal and dressed in white and—”
    Sometimes I had to