Side Trip to Kathmandu (A Sidney Marsh Murder Mystery Book 3) (13 page)

Over breakfast at the hotel, I had told Jay of my decision to stay with the tour on the side trip to Kathmandu and he had reluctantly agreed to come along as well.

Jay looked up as I returned from maxing out a withdrawal from the ATM, trying to gather enough cash to pay Sharma when he delivered the document.

I was just about to tell Jay that I had made the deal with Sharma when he began preaching a text I didn’t want to hear. “I’ve been thinking, Sidney, and I know it’s eating on you that we’re leaving India and you haven’t yet figured out who took out Felix. I know you. I know it’s hard for you to leave the tour without us accomplishing what Brooke asked us to do. But what she’s asked of us is crazy, an impossible task. It can’t be done by amateurs, and only possibly by the police. You and I’ve been lucky so far. You’ve managed to stay out of trouble and we just have a few days left on this side trip before we head back to New York. So now you just need to give it up, forget about snooping, and stay safe for the rest of the trip. If you can resist asking too many nosy questions, we might escape disaster this time. Can you do that?”

“Maybe. But I’m not making any promises, Jay. I am convinced that Felix was murdered, and if Brooke is or was really being targeted as well, I’m still going to try and find out who is responsible, as she asked me to do. I owe a lot to Brooke. I’m not letting her down, no matter what you or Silverstein or anyone else says. I can promise to be careful, but I won’t promise to give up in the time we have left. I know how to be discreet in my questioning. I won’t take any chances. No one will know what I’m up to. There’ll be no danger.”

“Yeah, right,” he said, gathering his things before boarding the aircraft. “In that case, you better start looking for another job for us. I think we might need one if Silverstein finds out that Nancy Drew is on the case again.”

After that little sermon, did I tell him about my deal with Sharma?

I did not.

S
harma’s choice of accommodation in Kathmandu went a long way toward redeeming him in everyone’s book. The luxurious five-star hotel we checked into was totally splendid. Each of us had huge rooms, almost like suites, with picture windows that framed a wide view of the snow-capped Himalayas.

Kathmandu is a magical place, no doubt about it. It is nestled in a bowl formed by the surrounding mountains and was closed for many years to the outside world, giving it a feeling of Shangri-La. This country girl had to keep pinching herself to know that she was really there, in this fabulous place, that it was not just a wonderful dream.

We spent the first day on an orientation tour of the old city, with its huge medieval buildings, palaces and temples, teeming with crowds of people. All of them seemed to be in constant motion, riding bicycles and motorized rickshaws, hawking wares, and bringing offerings to hundreds of shrines to hundreds of gods. I had never seen anything quite like it. The exotic beauty of the colors, sights, smells, and sounds surpassed even India’s. I was especially fascinated by the people, small, beautiful people, all hard at work under the huge watchful eyes of the Buddha, painted high on some of the buildings.

There has been a settlement of people at Kathmandu since the seventh century, and the very age of the stones seemed to seep into our bones. I’m quite sure Mohit would say that this sense of the ancient is from the aura left by thousands of departed souls. A more progressive ring of relatively modern buildings surrounds the ancient core city, known as the old city, but it is nowhere near as interesting.

Because the old city is a twisting, time-worn tangle of streets, difficult to navigate, we were deposited in Durbar Square, the main square, to get our introduction to Kathmandu on foot. Walking to sightsee is much easier in Nepal than in India, as the cows are not allowed to roam freely; thus we no longer had to watch where we stepped.

“Gather round, please, gather round,” called S.L. Sharma, trying to corral the group. Everyone was too distracted, taking photos and examining wares offered by sidewalk salesmen.

Adding to the general confusion was the fact that there was an annual festival taking place in the city, the Indra Jatra, the festival of Kumari, the Living Goddess. We stood in the crowd just outside her palace on the edge of Durbar Square watching as a tiny girl, adorned with heavy makeup and wearing robes and a headdress of red and gold silk, rode by us on a massive wooden cart.

Her ancient cart, with giant wooden wheels, was pulled not by horses, but by teams of small, strong men. Once chosen, the
Kumari
is trained never to show any expression. She stared with heavily lined, strangely vacant eyes at the crowd from her perch in a golden palanquin as the cart rolled slowly across the cobbled streets, making a sound like low thunder.

“Why, she’s just a child,” Lucy exclaimed, “a tiny child.”

“Yes, yes,” Mohit answered. “In Nepali,
Kumari
means simply ‘virgin.’ This is the Royal
Kumari
, who rules over the capital city of Kathmandu. Before the dissolution of the monarchy in 2008, even the king came to pay homage to her once a year. Her festival continues for a week, with events day and night.”

“Is she a Hindu goddess or Buddhist?” Brooke asked.

“She is considered to be the incarnation of the Hindu Lord Shiva’s wife, Parvati, but she is always selected from a Buddhist family. She is chosen when she is four or five after passing a series of tests, but is no longer divine after she comes of age. Then another child is chosen to be the
Kumari
.”

“What kind of tests?” Adam asked.

“She must be very brave, without fear, and never show emotion. This includes being unafraid when locked alone in a dark room with the heads of sacrificed animals, dripping with blood, and surrounded by the howls of dancing demons.”

“Poor little bairn,” Adam said, with feeling.

“No, no,” Mohit replied. “It is a great honor for a family if their child is chosen.”

Following a guided tour of the most significant spots, the group split up to wander freely and shop, with directions from Sharma on how and where to secure a taxi to return to the hotel on our own at a time of our own choosing. The group scattered rapidly. Everyone seemed to have something special that they wanted to see or bargain for.

Brooke declared that she had seen quite enough for one day. Lucy agreed, and Rahim escorted Brooke and Lucy back to the hotel. Jasmine and Justin were sidetracked by the jewelry vendors, who were loudly hawking both Nepali and Tibetan bracelets. Adam, Jay, and I left them to their bargaining and moved on down the street. The two men were not interested in the cart of unusual earrings that sidetracked me, so I told them to go on ahead and I would catch up after making my selections. Before I could follow then, however, Sharma suddenly appeared from the shadowed entrance of a café, pulled me aside and whispered, “I have made the inquiries of which we spoke, madam, and the paper you wished for is in my possession. Do you have the price we discussed?”

I stared at him, wide-eyed, then dug in my bag for the envelope of cash I’d set aside for this purpose.

He closed his fat paw over the money, counted the bills, and stuffed them in his pocket.

“It is as you suspected, madam, I confess it, and when the time is right this official document will give you the victory you seek. Guard it well.”

From his briefcase, he drew an official-looking document, and after looking both ways to ensure we were unobserved, thrust it into my bag. I did not pull it out to look at it then, although I was dying to take a peek. Despite Sharma’s precautions, I couldn’t take the chance that eyes might be watching. Inspection would have to wait until I was safely back in my hotel room with the doors locked.

Jay and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the labyrinthine streets, buying the most amazing souvenirs for very little money and trying hard not to offend anyone with our photography. But in such a place, the temptation was too much. Adam had stayed with us for a while but before long he left us, saying he needed to return to the hotel to check in with his office.

We walked until I simply couldn’t walk anymore. Then Jay hailed a motorized rickshaw and away we went, back to our palace of a hotel for long, hot baths, drinks, and my first good look at the mysterious document I had purchased at so dear a price from Sharma.

B
ack in the privacy of my room, I closed and locked the door, kicked off my shoes, and stretched out on the bed. Then I dug the paper out of the bottom of my bag, where I had secured it under the various small souvenirs I had purchased during the long, pleasant afternoon.

Knowing that Sharma was not above cheating me, I was pleased and relieved to find that the document in my hand appeared to be the real deal. As far as I could tell, it was an official, authentic, notarized copy of Felix’s autopsy report stating the cause of death as poisoning caused by ingestion of the seeds of
cerbera odollam
, the suicide tree. Ingestion of the deadly plant had caused his heart to stop. Since I was fairly certain that Felix did not purposely ingest the toxic seeds himself, I could only conclude that he’d been murdered. The paper bore an official seal, was signed by the proper official, and the date/time stamp indicated that it was signed and sealed four hours earlier than the phony autopsy report that Sharma had earlier tried to pass off as the official document. But that one had always looked like a fake. Jay said you could get a better one run up anywhere in New York’s Chinatown. This one looked real. Where, when or how Sharma had gotten possession of it was a mystery. But I didn’t care in the least about that. This report clearly proved the true cause of Felix’s death. Had Sharma possessed it all along and only produced it after taking my
baksheesh
? There was no way of knowing. Sharma was a secretive and complex schemer, to say the least.

I thought about going immediately to Jay’s room to show him the report, but knew that there would be little time to discuss our next move on this, our first night in Nepal. I resolved to wait until later to show it to him, after I’d had time to think it all through.

We were scheduled the next day to leave Kathmandu for a short visit to the famed jungle resort of Tiger Tops and return at the end of the week. We had been told that our same rooms at the hotel in Kathmandu would be held for us in our absence. Therefore we were only packing a small bag for the jungle adventure and leaving our big suitcases in our rooms. I decided that it would be best to keep the precious paper I had bought from Sharma at the hotel rather than risk losing or damaging it on the excursion. Talking it over with Jay could wait too, I thought, until our return. Nothing could be accomplished anyway from deep in the jungle.

After locking the document securely in the safe in the closet of my room, I dressed quickly and ran down to meet the others for a small welcoming cocktail party. Drinks would be followed by a festive evening meal.

After a fine dinner accompanied by a not-so-fine folkloric dance show, Jay and I spent the rest of the evening getting pleasantly hammered at the hotel bar, accompanied by Adam and some talented people from
National
Geographic
. You may think, as I did, that such top-notch writers and photographers spend all their time slaving away from some hot, miserable, bug-infested tent deep in the wilds, but you would be wrong. For here these professional adventurers were, sharing drinks and swapping stories with us at the glitzy bar.

I felt a bit like Miss Scarlett at the picnic at Twelve Oaks that evening. None of these men had ever met a Southern girl and all seemed brainwashed by the fictional stereotypes of magnolias and moonlight. It was a fun evening, to say the least. Adam was extremely attentive too. Leaving the bar, he asked me to walk with him in the garden.

On the secluded terrace, he pulled a tiny silken bag from his pocket, withdrew a lovely amethyst pendant, and fastened it around my neck.

“Oh, Adam, thank you,” I said. “This is beautiful!”

“I bought it for you in Agra,” he said, “I thought you might like it, lass.”

After a long walk and quite a lot of kissing in the moonlit garden, only the stern Victorian morals my grandmother had pounded into me made me turn down Adam’s invitation to spend the remainder of the night in his room.

It turned out to be a good thing, for had I been in the sack with the Scotsman when I woke the following day I might have missed the surreal stillness of the early morning’s glorious pink light on the snow-capped mountains surrounding Kathmandu. I sat transfixed in my nightgown, with my window open to the crisp clear air, the silence broken only by the pure sound of brass bells that rang out all over the valley with the dawn, sending prayers to heaven.

I also would also have missed the spectacular row between Justin and Jasmine that took place in the hallway outside my room just before breakfast.

Hearing the shrieking and screaming, I opened my door a crack and peeped out, just in time to see Justin running down the hall in his tighty-whities with Jasmine pelting shoes at him and calling him everything but a child of God. In the South, we call that dog-cussin’, and Justin was the recipient of the Indian version.

“I spit on you,” she screamed. “You think I will not tell them all what you are, you son of a donkey? They will all know, yes, they will, because I, Jasmine, will tell them!”

Not wanting to be involved in any way in the lovers’ quarrel, I eased my door shut, my shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. My only regret was that Jay had missed it, for I knew how much he would have enjoyed such a spectacle.

After breakfast, Sharma gathered the group and gave us the plan for our short visit to one of the lodges of Tiger Tops, the famed jungle resort in and near the Chitwan National Park. It was to be a highlight of the trip, something we had all, even the most sophisticated of us, been looking forward to.

Everyone, that is, but Jay.

He had come down to breakfast late, bleary eyed and hung over. On learning that we would have to travel to the lodge on elephants because the river was flooded after the monsoon rains, Jay threw a hissy fit that would even have met Jasmine’s standard.

I knew during Sharma’s briefing that Jay was getting all twirled up over something, but he hid it in front of the others. Not until we went to my room upstairs afterward did I find out what the problem was.

“I am not climbing on an elephant, Sidney, and that’s final. Not doing it. Not happening, no way.”

Jay stood with his arms folded against his chest and his eyes shut like a big, red-headed child, as if by closing his eyes he could make the whole situation go away.

Jay is terrified of large animals, a fact that I learned about him early in our relationship. His phobia was confirmed on our disastrous trip to South Africa.

“You have to, Jay, if you want to go to Tiger Tops. You heard what the man said. The river is flooded. The roads are underwater. It’s the only way in. We have a short flight over the mountains to the Terai—the flatland. Then we land at an airfield and are met by a truck from the lodge. The truck takes us to the river. Then we climb on the elephants and they take us across the river to the camp. That’s it. Simple. And it’s the only way in unless you want to parachute. There’s no other way. If you won’t ride the elephant, you’ll just have to stay here by yourself. Because I’m going. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I think it sounds like the most fun ever.”

He shuddered, and looked at me as if I’d just said I was going to enjoy eating a bowl of worms.

He moved to the window, staring out without saying anything, his back to me.

I waited and let him stew, saying nothing.

“Sidney,” he said finally, still with his back to me, “knowing me as well as you do, I can’t believe you are actually asking me to ride a wild elephant.”

“The elephants are not wild, Jay. They’re well trained. People do this elephant-riding thing every day in this part of the world. Asian elephants are trained from the time they are small. This is one of the things they are taught to do—carry people. They’re tame and docile. My Aunt Minnie could ride one of these elephants.”

I stretched out on the bed, pulling pillows up behind my head and waited some more. I didn’t say anything further, letting him have time to work through it.

Finally he collapsed in the chair by the bed and said in a low voice, “Okay. I’ll go. I guess I’ll have to. The ride shouldn’t last too long, should it? I mean, the river is not too wide, is it? Sharma said a small river. I think I can stand it long enough to cross a small river.”

#

The river was not small.

It was wide, way beyond its normal banks from the monsoon rains. And the journey was not short, either. It took hours to get there, rocking on a canvas cushion set on a small, wooden, railed platform atop a huge gray beast.

Our small propeller plane had flown over the jagged snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas, the tallest mountain range in the world, to a narrow green plain called the Terai. Everyone was glued to the windows hoping to photograph the famous mountains, trying to spot Everest and Annapurna.

The Terai is a narrow, marshy, grassy plain straddling the border of India and Nepal at the feet of the Himalayas. It is a fertile region and along the river on one side, small villages of farmers grow rice, wheat, sugar cane, jute and tobacco. The farmers fight off nightly forays from the Bengal tigers and cloud leopards that live within the sprawling confines of our ultimate destination, the Chitwan National Park, formerly The Royal Chitwan National Park.

Once the playground and private tiger-hunting preserve of kings and maharajahs, it is now a World Heritage Site. Chitwan, meaning “heart of the jungle” is open to the public and tiger hunts are no longer allowed. In addition to the tigers and leopards, the jungles of the park are filled with lots of other animals. It boasts a sizeable population of rare one-horned rhinos, sloth bears, rhesus monkeys, and mugger crocodiles and is home to seventeen varieties of snakes, including the rock python and king cobra.

After landing on a grassy strip, our plane taxied, turned, and took off, headed back to Kathmandu. It would not return for us for several days.

Brooke had chosen not to accompany us on the journey. She said she was tired from our travels, had stayed at Tiger Tops before, and preferred to rest in the luxurious hotel in Kathmandu until our return. Rahim, of course, remained with her, and Mohit and Sharma as well. Jasmine’s burly assistants, who doubled as her security guards, were left behind as well. Tiger Tops was quite used to visits by film stars and other celebrities, so her treasured privacy and security was assured.

“You will not need any of our services on this most excellent adventure,” Sharma had said as we prepared to leave the hotel. “All is arranged. The most famous Tiger Tops staff will take care of your every need until you return. It is most luxurious. If you wish anything, even the smallest of things, you only have to ask.”

The description of luxury in a world-famous place sounded good to Jay. The descriptions of the huge variety of animals, birds, and reptiles to be seen, not so much.

“You can look at all the animals you want, Sidney,” he said. “Just don’t ask me to go with you. I’ll be at the bar, chatting it up with the rich and famous, or in the spa, having a massage. I’ll look at your photos of the cute little animals but that’s all. That’s as close as I get. You know I hate nature.”

Jay might not be actively participating in the jungle safaris, but he certainly looked the part. Following his pattern of costuming for the occasion, he was dressed like a jungle explorer in a movie and I fully expected him to trot out a British accent before the adventure was over. I’m sure he thought I looked shabby in my old T-shirt and jeans.

A large green truck picked us up at the airstrip and took us on the next leg of our journey. Everyone except Jay was in high spirits, enjoying the adventure as we bounced along a rutted road and lurched through mud holes until we reached a clearing where a group of huge elephants and their keepers—
mahouts
—were waiting.

Ever climbed up on an elephant? Ever climbed up on an elephant without any sort of mounting platform, ladder, or stool? Well, I did. In the patterned shade of a huge kapok tree, the mahout told the elephant to kneel slightly, and another smiling man held the end of the elephant’s tail, bending it into a loop against the big beast’s rear end. Then I was instructed to step onto the big curved tail and clamber up. I couldn’t believe it, but I did as I was told and it worked. It was actually easy. There I was, in two minutes, sitting on top of the elephant. And the elephant hadn’t seemed to mind in the least. That mounting method was apparently routine for him.

Jay was still standing, ashen, on the ground, refusing to mount the elephant. I thought it might take a block and tackle to lift him. He looked in no state to scramble up the giant gray rump.

But before long, seeing all the others mounted, he knew he had little choice. So he relented and was soon sharing my
howdah
with me as the elephant rose to full height and lumbered off, following the others across the marshy plain toward the river.

The howdah was a simple, practical device made a bit more comfortable by square gray canvas cushions. It was nothing like the heavy, ornate gilt conveyances commonly used in ceremonial parades.

Each turbaned mahout, riding just in front of us behind the elephant’s head, guided the creature with vocal commands aided by his bare feet and a long metal hook. He was not seated on our rough wooden platform with us, but rather directly in front on the back of the animal’s neck. He handed us two large umbrellas to shelter from the sun as necessary.