Death on Tour (16 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Look. I’ve told everyone here that I’m a high school teacher, God help me. It happens to be true. But I could just as easily have said I was an artist or a programmer or a financial analyst. You’d know I was lying, but no one else here would. They have to take what I said on faith. It’s the same with everyone else. Anyone could be lying.”

She frowned. “But why would they?”

“Well, normal people wouldn’t, because they don’t have anything to hide and because keeping up a lie is a lot of work. But if you were planning to kill someone, you’d probably want to use an alias,” I pointed out.

“So what, you think Alan is serial killer?” She rolled her eyes.

“No. Of course not. Not exactly, anyway. It’s just…” my voice trailed off. I wasn’t sure what I meant.

She put her hands on her hips. “Now you’re just being ridiculous. No one would come on a tour to commit multiple murders. That doesn’t even make Hollywood sense. You have to do better than that.”

“I can’t,” I said. “You’re right, it doesn’t make sense. But you have to admit something really odd is going on. And I want to know what it is.”

*   *   *

Later that afternoon, however, I wasn’t thinking about murder. The next evening’s entertainment was to be a costume party, and Anni was pushing hard for all of us to come to the party in full Egyptian dress. After lunch, she suggested we meet her in the ship’s gift shop, where we would be able to purchase one of the inexpensive Egyptian tunics called galabias as well as jewelry and other accessories, all about as authentic as the plaster statues in the street stalls. We knew it was a chance for her to get us to buy something from someone who was almost certainly a friend. We didn’t care. I, for one, was dying to acquire a few Egyptian things, and she had promised to assist with the bargaining.

Located on the third floor beside the door that led to the sunning deck, the gift shop was brightly lit, and stuffed to bursting with gold jewelry, small trinkets, plastic pyramids, and carved wooden boxes. Silk scarves in every imaginable color hung from pegs, and several silver racks sagged with the weight of dozens of multicolored galabias of the sort that probably had real Egyptians laughing themselves sick. It didn’t matter in the slightest. Half our little group filled the shop, while the other half waited in the hall for a chance to squeeze inside. The only people I didn’t see were Jerry and Kathy, who were probably down in their rooms tending to her ankle. I couldn’t actually imagine Jerry participating in a costume party anyway.

The shopkeeper was a rotund middle-aged Egyptian with the patience of Job and a perfect grasp of English. Unlike his counterparts in the markets beside the monuments, he was obviously used to American and European tourists and stood back and let us look to our hearts’ content. He brought out gold pieces from under the counter for Nimmi and Lydia to admire. Seeing DJ rifling through a rack of clothing, he hurried from behind the counter, produced a magnificent black galabia with flowing headdress, and helped DJ try it on. With his dark skin and protruding belly, DJ looked like a desert sheik. Laughing helplessly, Nimmi searched out a bright red galabia and paired it with a belly dancer’s jingling belt. DJ began haggling right away.

Kyla found a flowing golden galabia that looked more like a pretty dress than a tunic. She slipped it on over her clothes and looked in the full-length mirror. The color brought out the golden highlights in her hair and the pale tan of her skin.

“That’s perfect on you,” I said honestly, if a little enviously. “Now you just need some gold jewelry.”

“Can I see that ankh?” she asked the shopkeeper, pointing in one of the display cabinets.

I wandered away to search through the racks. Nothing was going to compare with the golden outfit, so I started looking at the darker colors. I wondered how many of my choices in life were based on trying not to compete with my cousin. I pushed the garments along their racks and stopped at a deep blue. I considered. The fabric wasn’t the same quality as Kyla’s gold, but it wasn’t as expensive either. It was marked one hundred Egyptian pounds and a quick calculation made that about $20. I pulled it from the rack. Anni joined me.

“Ah, that is very nice,” she said. “And here, look at this.”

She pulled a matching scarf from a hook on the wall and wrapped it around my head. Little fake gold coins dangled from the edges and framed my face. She pulled me in front of a mirror. I thought I looked very exotic and mysterious. Then I blinked, and I looked like a not-so-young tourist playing dress-up with a cheap scarf. I squinted my eyes, trying to get the initial illusion back, then decided it didn’t matter.

“I’ll take it,” I said, starting for the counter.

Anni looked at me pityingly. “No, no. You never say that. Here, watch me.”

She took my things to the cash register and made a little gesture to the shopkeeper.

“Ah, excuse me,” he said to Nimmi, who was now admiring several pieces of gold jewelry. She gave him a smile of assent, and he turned back to Anni, leaning over the counter with a spark of enthusiasm in his eyes.

“Ah, Mr. Elgabri, I would like to introduce to you Miss Jocelyn Shore, from America. She is a very special person, and part of this very big group who will be buying many, many fine things from your shop.”

I listened, admiring Anni’s skill as she very politely pointed out to him that I deserved only the best prices, and moved smoothly into telling him that the things I had chosen, although very beautiful, were really not worth the amounts on the price tags. He was smiling and agreeing how special I was, but pointing out that I had excellent taste and had obviously chosen some of the finest items that he carried. I grinned helplessly, face very red, knowing I would never, ever have the courage to say any of those things. In fact, it would be worth extra not to have to haggle for what I wanted.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Nimmi was still fingering the pieces of jewelry in the small black velvet tray sitting before her on the counter. Briefly, she laid an elegant little hand over a ring, and when she lifted it, the ring had vanished.

Shocked, I completely lost the thread of conversation between Anni and Mr. Elgabri. This was the sort of thing I had come to expect when I took my students on a field trip. So many of them were under enormous pressure from their friends, and of course a significant percentage were amoral little bastards who shouldn’t be allowed out of their cages. But this was a new one. Could a woman like Nimmi, obviously wealthy, obviously socially elite, steal from a shopkeeper who probably earned less in a week than what she spent in a day? I didn’t think so. Not today.

She made a show of pushing back the tray and started away from the counter.

“Great ring,” I said to her. “That will look terrific on you, Nimmi. May I see it?”

She flushed, a subtle red color creeping up her neck and tinting her cheeks. Anni and the shopkeeper stopped in midsentence to stare. For one instant, I knew she was considering denying that she had a ring, but the pressure of three pairs of eyes was too much, particularly when Mr. Elgabri looked down at the jewelry tray.

Shooting me an ugly look, she held out the ring, and I took it, holding it to the light and admiring it. It wasn’t too bad. A broad gold band shaped into the Eye of Horus, the ancient symbol of protection.

I smiled as I handed it back. “Really lovely and so unusual. You’ll enjoy that forever.”

With a huge smile, the shopkeeper turned to her and asked if she were ready to check out. Trapped like a rat, I thought. She looked around frantically, but her husband had made his purchases and was no longer in the shop. In fact, I suspected that she’d waited for him to leave before she tried her sleight of hand. With a rigid smile, she opened her purse and pulled out her wallet.

“Oh, no. I don’t have nearly enough cash,” she said.

I hoped she didn’t have acting aspirations. Usually when you saw someone give a performance that bad, they were moments away from being eaten by a mutant rubber shark. “I don’t suppose you take credit cards.”

She would have been right in most places, but this was a Swiss-run tourist boat. “Of course we do,” said the shopkeeper, holding his hand out. And she had no choice but to hand over her card.

I turned back to Anni and asked for a demonstration of how to tie my scarf, mostly to avoid any more evil glances. Nimmi might suspect, but she could never be sure that I had done it on purpose. She completed her purchase and stormed out, her face still brick red.

With a big smile, the shopkeeper met Anni’s eye, then said to me, “For a lovely lady, the price is eighty pounds. And you will be so kind as to accept the scarf as my gift. It suits you perfectly.”

Anni patted my shoulder lightly. “You will not get a better deal than that. And you didn’t need my help after all.”

*   *   *

After shopping, Kyla decided that a nap in our cabin would be just the right thing, but I was feeling oddly restless. I handed her my purchases to put away, then climbed the stairs leading to the sundeck of the
Nile Lotus
. I blinked in the brilliant sunshine, then gave a little shiver. Here on the river, with the March breeze streaming across the bow, the temperature was cool to the point of being chilly.

The sundeck was huge, stretching almost the full length of the ship, and lined with deck chairs gleaming green and white in the sun. In the center, a very large white canopy covered a bar and about twenty lounge chairs, providing a generous patch of shade for anyone who couldn’t take any more sun. No one was taking advantage of it. I could see a few die-hard sunbathers draped over the green-and-white-striped chairs along the rails, white flesh blinding in the light, but several others were huddled in their towels.

I walked toward the bow of the ship. A tiny swimming pool in one corner looked like a miniature oasis, complete with turquoise water and sand-colored decking, but no one had dipped so much as a toe in it all afternoon. In two or three more weeks when the temperature climbed, I was sure it would be packed with laughing tourists.

I glanced over the railing. The water swirled far below, deep blue churning to frothy green along the white sides of our ship. The eastern bank seemed nearer than it was, a strip of halfhearted dusty green holding back a sweep of sand and rock. Along a narrow dirt path running beside the river, a man in a gray galabia rode a tiny donkey, his feet almost dragging on the ground. He clutched a short switch in one hand and tapped the donkey’s behind every few seconds, but the skinny boy trotting after them on foot had no trouble keeping up. The
Nile Lotus
churned on, leaving man, boy, and donkey behind.

I had just decided to return to my cabin, when I saw a scrawny arm waving frantically at me from the after deck. Charlie de Vance grinned at me and then called, “Just bring us a couple of those towels, would you, honey?”

I smiled back and scooped up four of the soft, fluffy white towels stacked beside the bar and took them to where he and Yvonne were sitting like two plucked chickens on lounge chairs in the back corner of the deck. Unbelievably, both were wearing bathing suits, which, though modest by modern standards, still revealed far too much saggy, spotted skin. A pink flush indicative of early sunburn tinted Charlie’s chest above an expanse of sparse white hair, and goose bumps covered his scrawny thighs. Yvonne’s fingers had turned an odd bluish color. They took the towels I offered gratefully.

“Who would’ve thought it would be so nippy?” asked Charlie, pulling one towel around his shoulders like a shawl and spreading another over his legs. “All you ever read about is the desert heat.”

“It’s winter, if you think about it,” I answered. “Spring won’t be here for another week and a half. Still part of the ‘season’ for the archaeologists.”

“Well it was hot enough by the pyramids.”

Yvonne patted his arm. “More sheltered there, with all that stone absorbing the heat and blocking the wind. Remember how cool it was at Saqqara.”

I started edging away, not wanting to get trapped into an interminable discussion about the weather. Charlie noticed and patted the chair next to him. “Pull up a pew, missy. We haven’t had a chance to talk with you properly this whole trip.”

Short of hurtling myself over the side, which suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad idea, I was trapped. Charlie drew a deep breath in preparation for his first question.

“So you two are here on your honeymoon?” I asked quickly. The important thing at this point was to maintain control of the conversation.

Charlie grinned proudly and patted Yvonne’s hand. “We sure are.”

“How did you meet?”

“Our fiftieth class reunion,” answered Yvonne with a fond smile. “We’ve actually known each other most of our lives. We were high school sweethearts.”

I was touched. “So you met after all those years apart? And it was love at first sight?”

“Exactly.” They looked into each other’s eyes. “Yvonne’s husband had passed away two years before. And when I saw her again after all that time, it was like I was right back in high school. Head over heels in love. Prettiest little thing I ever saw. Of course, getting rid of my wife wasn’t all that easy.”

If I’d been drinking milk, it would have spewed out of my nose. “What?”

“Oh, yes. Sue Anne didn’t understand at all.”

“Well, she had a point, Charlie,” said Yvonne. “I mean, you two had been married forty years.”

“And that was enough! Forty years of my life I gave that woman. And then when I saw you, I knew I finally had a chance at happiness.”

I goggled at them, mouth hanging open. I couldn’t help it.

Yvonne went on. “It was the same for me. I took one look at Charlie and knew I had to have him. I felt bad about being a home wrecker, but at our age, you have to either shit or get off the pot. If you’ll pardon the expression,” she added with an apologetic glance at me.

The sunbathers by the pool finally gave up, tossed their towels on their chairs, and hurried inside. I watched them enviously.

“So what happened to your wife?” I asked. My voice squeaked a little.