Death on Tour (7 page)

Tom shot me a grateful look, but Susan just shook her head. “We’ll just go back toward Tut’s room,” she said, and dragged him out.

Kyla still had her arm linked through Alan’s, and they were examining one of the pharaohs. She looked very pretty by his side. Tall as she was, her head barely reached his cheekbone and her shoulder rubbed against his arm in just the right place. I felt a sharp pang of jealousy, surprisingly strong. Just because he had spoken to me for a few moments did not make him interested in me, I told myself sternly. I was being all kinds of stupid and I needed to knock it off. Summoning up the strength of generations of Puritan ancestors, I firmly repressed my feelings into a small ball in the pit of my stomach where they could safely churn and burn an ulcer into the lining.

With a small shrug, I turned away. Looking down at the shriveled corpse of Thutmose III, I felt a mix of pity and revulsion. Here was certainly not the burly, menacing monster of countless mummy movies. I wondered if the pharaohs had known what their bodies would become. Perhaps so, especially since they frequently booted out their predecessors and confiscated the better monuments and burial chambers for themselves. Some of the kings made large muscular youthful statues of themselves to be used as a backup in case their mummies were destroyed or lost. The sarcophagi were covered with elaborate texts describing the steps that the dead should perform in order to successfully reinhabit the body or the statue. Sort of an early user guide. No wonder you’re still lying there like a dead cockroach, I thought at Thutmose. You wouldn’t stop to read the instructions.

*   *   *

Dusk was falling by the time we returned to the hotel. The Mena House stands in the metaphorical shadow of the pyramids and had since it was built in 1869. Agatha Christie had walked up the front steps into its dim interior in the days when it was cooled only by the desert wind and the shade of the palm trees that encircled it. Prince Farouk of Egypt used to stop by at all hours for sandwiches. World leaders and movie stars, the rich and the powerful, the intrepid and the timid had all come to the Mena House to stay in the one place on earth that provided the comforts of the present and a glimpse into the unfathomable past.

The original building was magnificent, designed with palatial proportions and filled with carved and embossed wood, glittering chandeliers, and gilded pillars. Set like a jewel in the Egyptian desert, the grounds were a garden paradise, complete with palm trees, winding paths, and a turquoise pool forming an oasis in the sand. To the left, the pyramids loomed over the puny buildings of modern generations, giant desert denizens guarding against the coming darkness.

Once off the bus, the group scattered with promises to meet before dinner in the upstairs lounge. Kyla and I returned to our room to shower and change. As peons on a budget tour, we were housed in the newer, modern wing across the grounds from the main building. Our room could have been part of any modern hotel in any city in the world, except that from our tiny balcony, we could see the pyramids on the western horizon. Even from this distance, they appeared immense against the deepening blue of the evening sky, and the crimson glow of the setting sun burnished their sides to a tawny copper. None of it seemed quite real.

Dinner that night was to include belly dancing and whirling dervishes, which I was looking forward to seeing. My shower and primping usually took about a quarter of the time that Kyla’s did, so I went first and then pulled on a t-shirt and threw myself on the bed to rest while she went through her elaborate routine.

As soon as the bathroom door shut and the water started, I leaped up and retrieved my backpack. I still had Millie’s pack and wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it. I should have given it to Anni before I left the bus, or even stuffed it under a seat, but at the last minute I’d decided I wanted to take one more look at the contents. For all I knew, something else of mine or Kyla’s might be hidden in the depths, but I knew that was only an excuse. I really wanted to read through the rest of that notebook. As soon as I heard the sound of Kyla drawing the shower curtain, I emptied the bag onto my bed.

The notebook, the lighter, the pen, and the purse all dropped onto the rust-colored floral bedspread, followed by a couple of small items that might have belonged to Millie herself and a hair brush filled with long black hair that certainly did not. Yuck, I thought, picking it up distastefully between thumb and forefinger. Either Dawn Kim’s or Fiona’s. Who would steal a used hair brush? With a little grimace I dropped it back into the bag so I wouldn’t have to look at it.

I picked up a small amulet made of dark green jade hanging on a leather cord. Intricately carved, it had an Arabic inscription in the center, and looked well worn, as though it had been rubbed between calloused fingers for years and years. Not something one could find in a tourist shop, I thought. Almost certainly someone’s cherished heirloom. There was no telling from whom she’d stolen it. Anni, Mohammad, even our bus driver, Achmed. I winced. These things would have to be returned.

I turned back to the notebook and flipped through the small pages until I found the entry about Kyla and me. Where did the lesbian suspicion come from? I guess it was inconceivable two women could share a room without something going on. Very catty. And mean-spirited. I did not feel so bad for disliking Millie, alive and dead.

Turning the page, I saw only one more entry remained, so maybe I hadn’t missed as much as I thought. I probably could have left the bag on the bus for all I had learned, but then I would have been curious about it for the rest of my life. I might as well finish what I had started. Reading on, I gave a little gasp.

Day 2

Something fishy going on. Smuggling!?

Must verify statue is real.

Contact A or M? Or police?

I sat frozen. Impossible, I thought. Millie had found something that made one of us look like a smuggler? A or M. That had to be Anni, our guide, or Mohammad, our WorldPal representative. How ridiculous. We were a completely ordinary group of tourists, by turns clueless, annoying, enthusiastic, kind, and so on. A pretty standard grouping of random people. In fact, the only thing at all unusual I’d learned about our little group was that most of us were fairly experienced travelers, which I supposed made sense. By the time someone chose Egypt as a destination, chances were that they’d already visited the standard European countries.

So Millie thought one of us was a smuggler. Believed it strongly enough that she was eager to pursue the possibility and turn that person in to the authorities. How ridiculous, I thought again. The unfounded fantasy of a petty mind, not to be given a second’s consideration. Except that Millie was now dead. I felt a chill of uneasiness shiver down my spine. A coincidence. Her death had been a freak accident. A simple fall that unexpectedly turned fatal, probably because she wasn’t exactly young and her bones had been brittle.

Annoyed with my own suspicious mind, I replaced all the items, stolen or not, into the bag and zipped it. I’d leave it on the bus tomorrow, I told myself sternly, and be done with it. No more thinking about death or smuggling. I lay back on the bed and began thinking about smuggling and death.

After an interminable time, the blow-dryer ceased and blessed silence reigned. I looked at the clock. It would be only 11:30 a.m. back in Austin. Just about time for lunch. I wondered if my ex-husband, Mike, would be meeting his new fiancée back at their downtown condo for a bite and a quickie.

“You’re thinking about them again, aren’t you?” asked Kyla, emerging from the bathroom.

“Not at all,” I denied quickly and guiltily.

“I can always tell. You get this little pinched look around the lips. Sort of like sucking on a lemon, but less attractive.”

I gave a groan. “I hate them both so much.”

“And rightly so. But you swore you weren’t going to think about them on this trip.”

“No, I swore I wouldn’t
talk
about them on this trip,” I corrected, rising to my feet. It was time to put on the one dressy outfit I’d brought, a flowing black skirt that could be reversed into a flowing black-and-white patterned skirt. Tonight I chose the matching black knit top with the scoop neck. The next night I could go with the white.

Kyla sprayed hairspray on her hair, then slid a pale yellow sleeveless dress over her head and gave herself the once over in the mirror.

I frowned at her, suddenly feeling completely frumpy. “I thought we’d agreed that we shouldn’t show our arms and shoulders here?”

Kyla looked surprised. “Well, that doesn’t apply in the hotels. They’re used to international guests here.” She looked at my skirt and blouse with a critical eye. “Don’t worry about it. You look very nice. A little conservative maybe, but very nice.”

I sighed internally. This explained why Kyla’s suitcase weighed almost twenty pounds more than my own. And why no one would be mistaking us for sisters this evening. More like a socialite and her plain assistant, I thought with a flash of amusement. She slipped on a pair of matching yellow sandals that showed off her frosted pink toenails.

We returned to the main building to meet the others, walking along a little path that ran through the hotel grounds, past lush grass, palms, and flowers. Directly ahead we could still see the pyramids, now lit with spotlights from below and the moon above. The moon seemed to float directly over the ancient blunted capstone, almost brushing the top. Overhead, the stars were beginning to grow bright in the clear dry air, undiminished by the glow of the hotel.

Instead of Anni, the tour director, Mohammad, met us in the lobby as he had done at the airport. He was a big man, almost as bulky as DJ and just as dark skinned with very white teeth. He wore a houndstooth jacket, which had to be hot even in the cooling air of the Egyptian evening. I suspected he kept it on to hide the sweat stains under his arms. I wondered what his day had been like and what had happened to Millie’s body. Had he spent the afternoon making arrangements to ship her back to the United States? Had he been the one to make the call to her family? But tonight he seemed completely at ease, the perfect tour host, which was probably the best way to handle the whole ugly situation. Heartless maybe, but there was no point in having what was, after all, just an accident ruin the trip for everyone else. Just an accident, I repeated to myself, trying to push the journal entry out of my mind. Had Millie ever talked to him about smuggling?

“Up the stairs and to the right,” he greeted us with a warm smile. “We are having a drink before we go in to dinner.”

We walked up a long, beautiful stairway to the elegant bar area, complete with intricately carved wood, domed ceilings, and immense chandeliers. The chairs were oversized, overstuffed, and very comfortable. The whole atmosphere was exotic, a fascinating blend of oriental and Arabic motifs that discreetly but firmly underlined how far we were from home.

The Carpenters were already present in one corner, Lydia puffing away on a cigarette, holding her own little ashtray in her left hand. Smoke or no smoke, they were already our favorite people on the trip, so we plopped down in squashy chairs close to them.

“How’s your niece feeling?” asked Kyla.

Ben snorted. “Bloody awful. She’s heaving out of both ends, if you get my drift.”

Australians. Gotta love ’em. The poor girl would never show her face again if she could have heard that.

Anni overheard and joined us, looking concerned. “Jane is still sick? I will give you some powders. They are better than anything you can get from a doctor. Put one packet in a bottle of water and have her drink the whole thing.”

From a little purse slung over her shoulder, she pulled a handful of mysterious paper packets with Arabic instructions printed on them.

Ben gave them the same dubious look he would have given a pouch of possum innards from a faith healer in a revival tent, but then shrugged. “I’ll just run these back to her room, then, shall I?”

“Oh, bring my blue sweater when you come back, love,” Lydia called after him as he started down the stairs.

Charlie and Yvonne de Vance sat on a nearby sofa, holding hands. I considered them. Even in the soft, flattering light of the chandeliers, they looked about a hundred years old, but I had to admit they got around well enough. I thought I’d overheard them saying they were on their honeymoon. Second honeymoon, I assumed, although at their age it might be the third or fourth. They were certainly snuggling like a pair of teenagers.

The Peterson family encircled a separate table, the boys going through a bowl of nuts like a pair of rabid squirrels. Susan and Tom both looked tired, but Tom caught my eye and gave me a thumbs up.

A waiter with a silver tray appeared with fluted glasses filled with an orange and pink fruit drink and handed them to Kyla and me. Either a daiquiri or a smoothie, I thought, and took a suspicious taste, wondering if the ice was safe here. Smoothie. The Egyptians in general frowned on alcohol, although it was readily available in the tourist hotels. Just as well, I thought, resigned. As tired as I was, a cocktail would have me asleep on my feet. Kyla, however, took a single sip and gestured the waiter back.

“Could you bring me a gin and tonic?” she asked.

“Certainly, madam,” he said and glided off.

“You should have one too,” she said firmly. “Make it two!” she called after him.

I grimaced. “You know I don’t drink that crap.”

“You can pour it in your fruity thing. Give it a kick.”

Kyla drank the first gin and tonic like water and became extremely cheerful. Without asking, she confiscated mine, which had probably been her plan all along.

The other guests began trickling in. Alan Stratton arrived, saw Kyla and possibly me, and slid into the nearest chair. He looked a bit grim around the edges, I thought, suddenly curious.

“Hello,” said Kyla warmly.

She sat up in her chair a little, which showed her figure to full advantage. I wondered whether it was calculated or not, then felt a little ashamed for thinking catty thoughts. Kyla had always liked the boys, and they’d always returned the favor and why not? She made flirting effortless and fun, which was probably exactly what it was supposed to be. The presence of an unattached attractive male on a tour was an unexpected bonus as far as she was concerned.