Controlling Interest (13 page)

“That's more than I found. Yasmine's gone to ground somewhere, but we've got photos out all up and down the street. Somebody will have seen her.” He held out a hand. “Let's go talk to the family. Maybe they'll give us a new place to look.”

Natalie sighed and let him pull her to her feet. “Alright. Lead on, McDuff.”

As he and Natalie headed for the elevator, Matt hooked a thumb at the grand piano near the bar. “This place sure isn't for the underprivileged. It'd cost me a week's salary to stay here one night.”

“I know. Mom gave me a high tea party here on my twelfth birthday, but I haven't been back since.” Natalie smiled at the sight of a bunch of kids leaning over the sides of the magnificent travertine marble fountain in the center of the lobby. They were watching the famous Peabody ducks paddle in its pool. “Aren't they cute?”

“I like my duck with orange sauce.”

Natalie gave him an insouciant grin. “Are you taking the lead on the interview?”

“Depends.” Matt punched the elevator button. “If I give you the secret bat-signal — ” he closed one eye in elaborate pantomime — “you take over.”

Natalie wrinkled her nose. “I'm serious. Where, exactly, are we going with them?”

“Wherever they'll take us. Just remember — Middle Eastern men can be notorious chauvinists.” He caught her look and grinned. “Worse than me. So when we're talking to Yasmine's daddy-o or her fiancé, you need to leave it to me.” He paused. “You'll handle the women better.”

“I'm surprised you'd admit something like that.”

“Why?” They got on the elevator, and Matt hit the fifth-floor button. “One of the main strategies of investigation is plain old common sense. You watch how people act, then play on predictable behavior.” He waved a hand. “Culturally and gender-wise.”

“I guess that's true.”

Natalie's admiring expression warmed him. He didn't often have somebody look up to and respect him.

The elevator dinged as the doors opened again. Matt looked at Natalie. “Here we go. You ready?” She nodded and Matt followed her down a hallway paneled in rich dark wood and lit with gleaming brass light fixtures. He turned when Natalie heaved a sigh.

“What's the matter?”

“My parents spent their wedding night here in a Romeo and Juliet suite.”

“What's a Romeo and Juliet suite?” He watched room numbers. The Patels should be on this hall.

“Two-story suite with these beautiful curved iron stairways and a balcony right inside the living room.” Her tone was so odd, Matt stopped with his hand raised to knock on the Patels' door. Natalie was looking down, fiddling with her little handbag. “I was in the seventh grade when Mom and Dad divorced. I couldn't understand why they couldn't get along and live together, and I spent hours locked in my room, mooning over their wedding album.”

Matt shook his head. “Girls.”

“Are your parents still married?”

“Thirty years.”

“Thirty? But you're — ”

He laughed. “Yeah. But nothing immoral. I was a honeymoon baby.”

Natalie grinned. “I guess you could say I was a pre-honeymoon baby. I used to humiliate my mother by informing random strangers that I was in her tummy when she got married.”

He snorted and knocked on the door. “Well, weren't you a little pill?”

After a moment the heavy old door opened to reveal a small woman in traditional Pakistani outfit. Its eye-popping persimmon color emphasized her creamy skin and unlined face.

The woman failed to smile. “Yes?”

Recovering, Matt presented his card. “I'm Matt Hogan with River City Investigations. I called a little while ago. Are you Mrs. Patel?”

“I am Shazia Patel,” she said in heavily accented English, stepping back to let Matt and Natalie in. “Please. Come in. I shall get my husband.”

Mrs. Patel led the way into the suite, which was richly furnished with antiques, fine paintings, and thick carpets. She gestured toward a sofa across from the mahogany manteled fireplace. “Sit down, please. I shall be right back.” She disappeared into a bedroom.

Natalie looked around, wide-eyed, then dropped down beside Matt. “This place is amazing.”

“You've never stayed here?”

“No. But one day . . .” She glanced at Matt, her cheeks suddenly flaming. “Never mind.”

Her mind might as well have been behind a glass display case. The thought of Natalie on a honeymoon should have made him squirm, but he found himself smiling. “It'll happen one day. You'll have some guy wrapped around your finger before he knows what hit him.”

“My dad says he'll give me ten grand if I elope. Then I could afford a night here.”

Matt grinned at her. “You might want to consider it. Maybe old Oddball will take you up on the offer after all.”

“Ozment. And I told you he's out of the picture. There's
nobody
in the picture. So shut up.”

“Oh, I'm cowed.” He looked around, startled to realized that Mrs. Patel had returned to the room with a short, slender, meticulously groomed man in dark trousers and a crisp white button-down shirt and tie. Matt jumped to his feet. “Mr. Patel.”

Obviously pretending not to have heard their unprofessional banter, Abid Patel offered his hand. “You are from the investigative agency of my friend Eddie Tubberville?”

“Yes, sir. And this is my associate, Ms. Tubberville. Eddie's daughter.” Having Natalie along with him might be an advantage after all.

Patel nodded and gestured for them both to be seated. “Please. Make yourselves comfortable.” He and his wife took the upholstered chairs on either end of the magnificent beveled glass coffee table in front of the sofa. “Thank you for your promptness in coming to see us. We are most disturbed by our daughter's disappearance.” He looked at his wife. “Shall we say frantic?”

“I can understand that, sir. We're doing our best to find her.” Matt studied the shadows of fatigue under Patel's deep brown eyes, the thin lips clipped together. “We've run across evidence that she was right here on Beale Street, as recently as yesterday noon.” He glanced at Natalie. “Show them what you found at the thrift store.”

Natalie opened her bag. “These belonged to your daughter, right?”

Shazia snatched up the yellow-green fabric and held it close. “Yasmine's
shalwar kameez
! You found it at a . . . I do not know ‘thrift store.' ” She looked at Natalie, a quirk between her elegant dark brows.

“Resale,” said Natalie. “Used clothing and household goods. Inexpensive stuff.”

Shazia sucked in a breath. “My daughter will not wear used clothes.”

“Well . . .” Natalie glanced at Matt. He shrugged, letting her have the floor. “She bought a pair of jeans and a T-shirt there. We nearly caught up with her at a blues bar yesterday.”

“A
blue
bar?” Shazia shook her head.

“
Blues
bar,” her husband corrected. “A place where they play music of the African American heritage.” Frowning, he straightened his already rigid posture. “Yasmine loves American music. I should never have allowed her to go to boarding school.”

“The guys we talked to at the bar seemed to think she was perfectly okay.” Matt pulled out a notepad and pen. “Yasmine seems to be a pretty independent lady. She managed to find a ride to Beale Street without any trouble. Any idea why she headed this direction? Did she know you'd be staying here at the Peabody?”

Patel shook his head. “She was to have stayed here, but we hadn't planned to come over to the U.S. until closer to time for the wedding. We wanted to let Yasmine settle, get to know her future husband's family.”

“I wanted to come with her.” A note of censure colored Shazia's soft voice, though her eyes remained properly lowered. “But my husband thought it not necessary.”

Patel scowled at his wife. “I do not know why my daughter came to this part of town — unless she was seeking out the music attractions.”

“Okay.” Matt made a note. “We'll check out some of the other hot spots. Sun Studios, maybe. The Elvis souvenir shops. Seems kind of unlikely, though, that she'd be hitting tourist attractions when she could do that later with her fiancé.”

“Ammi.”

Matt looked over to find a lovely young woman, probably no more than a teenager, standing in an open bedroom doorway. She was dressed in jeans and a layering of sweaters — undoubtedly in deference to the air conditioning cranked down to sub-zero temperatures. The soft voice continued in a musical flood of Urdu.

Shazia, glancing at Matt, answered rapidly and gestured for the girl to go away.

“Wait.” Natalie lifted her hand. “Is this your other daughter? May we talk to her?”

Abid Patel's thick brows drew together above his hooked nose. “For what purpose? Liba is a child. She has been in school in Karachi for the last three years. She is only here because summer term has yet to begin.”

Matt assessed the situation quickly. Natalie was right. Yasmine's little sister could be useful, if they could get around Patel's protectiveness and dismissive attitude.

He gave Patel a man-to-man look. “Maybe Miss Tubberville could treat her and your wife to some ice cream while you and I finish our discussion.”

“I suppose that would be appropriate.” Patel pulled at his lower lip, giving his wife a stern look. “But do not under any circumstances go into any of those blues bars, Shazia. American culture has already corrupted our family.”

“Very well.” Shazia inclined her head toward her husband, then spoke to her younger daughter in affectionate Urdu.

A spark of exasperation lit Liba's brown eyes. “Ammi, my English is perfect, and I am not a child.”

“Liba!” said her father sharply.

Shazia laid a dainty hand on his arm. “I will speak with her, Abid.” She looked apologetically at Matt. “May I offer you refreshment before we leave?”

“No, thanks. You ladies go and have a good time on Beale. We'll figure this thing out.” He surveyed Patel's glowering expression.
We better figure it out, Lord, or I'm toast.

“I just feel so bad,” Natalie said, slurping down the last of her root beer float. “If I'd made Yasmine feel more welcome, maybe she wouldn't have run away. I usually don't have any trouble getting people to talk to me — in fact my dad always says I should've been born a parakeet. Do you think I scared her off by being — I don't know — ” she waved her hand — “too nosy or something?”

Shazia glanced at Liba. “I am sorry. My English. ‘Nosy' means having big nose?”

Liba giggled around a spoonful of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey. “No, Ammi. Nosy means you get in someone else's business. Like . . .” She rattled off a phrase in Urdu that of course Natalie didn't understand.

Shazia's expression cleared. “Ah. But I do not think that would make Yasmine run away. She is friendly parakeet too. This is why she took the job with the embassy. She love to talk to people, make them understand and get along with one another. Since she is a little girl, she makes friends easy.”

“Then I don't get it.” Natalie sat back, deflated. She watched Liba scrape every last drop of ice cream, banana, and dark chocolate out of the bottom of her cup. “Liba, did your sister write to you at all before she left to come to the States? Did either of you talk to her on the phone?”

Liba set her empty carton on the little round table and twisted her hair around her finger. “When I'm at school, I talk to her on the phone once a week at least. But we email every day.” She slanted a glance at her mother. “When Headmistress lets me on the computer.”

Shazia bit her lip. “There are many dangers for young women on the Internet.” She looked at Natalie. “My daughters are more . . . how you say . . . innocent than American young women. I have asked that Liba's computer time be strictly chaperoned.”

Natalie blinked. “You don't have to explain to me. I certainly wouldn't criticize. So what did Yasmine think about getting married? What's her fiancé like?”

“He has the reputation of a fine man. We have not meet him.”

Oh yeah. Mail-order bride, just like you always saw in those TV shows about Alaska and the Old West. She tamped down her instinctive American indignation. “What did Yasmine have to say about it? Getting married sight-unseen, I mean.”

“Yasmine is a dutiful daughter. She does what her father wishes. She knows we know best for her future.”

“I think my sister had some . . . reserves.” Liba gave her mother a little lift of the chin. Not defiance, exactly. But just a tad of moxie in the brown eyes.

Natalie scribbled a note in her PDA. “Reservations? A little worry, maybe?”

“Yes, worry.” Liba's eyes dared her mother to disagree. “She has always wanted to see America, but moving here forever, to live with a stranger . . . You see why that would not be easy.”