Death on Tour (2 page)

A façade. I could tell she was as worried as anyone.

“What do you think is going on?” she asked under her breath.

“I think they’re going to arrest us all and throw us into Turkish prison.”

“Besides that.”

“No idea.”

She gave me a look. Kyla may look slim and elegant from a distance, but she is basically a pit bull without the fur. Back home in Austin, she leads a team of software developers with a great deal of organization, energy, and blunt speech. She also deeply believes that she is fully capable of handling any situation at any time, which I am happily and constantly pointing out to her is just not true. In return, I’m pretty sure she considers me weak and cowardly, mostly because she has called me both to my face. Still, there was no one I would rather have with me on any kind of adventure, and when I invited her to join me on a tour of Egypt, she said yes almost before the words were out of my mouth. Of course, she then spent the next six weeks trying to talk me into skipping the tour group and going about on our own, which was completely crazy. I’d wanted to go to Egypt my whole life. The pyramids, the mummies, the Nile. A dream trip, the fulfillment of a childhood desire. But go without the protection of a group and a guide who at least spoke the language? In a country where guards with machine guns stood on every corner and escorted every busload of tourists? No way. And if Kyla thought I was a coward, I could live with that. Of course, it seemed that even tour groups couldn’t protect you from everything. Millie’s death could hardly be considered part of the normal WorldPal package, but I knew if it interfered with our trip, Kyla was never going to let me hear the end of it.

I turned my thoughts back to the accident. The whole thing bothered me, and not just because a lonely middle-aged woman was dead.

“How do you think she got up there?” I wondered aloud.

She glanced behind me at the huge blocks. The top of her head barely cleared the upper rim of the stone. “I could get up there if I wanted to,” she announced.

“So could I, if a lion was chasing me. But not any other way. And she was a lot older than we are.”

Kyla considered. “She was pretty wiry,” she said doubtfully. “I mean, look at Flora and Fiona. They must be about a hundred, but I’ve seen Fiona tossing suitcases like a teamster.”

I ignored this. “And even if she did climb up and fall, how could that kill her?” I eyed the sad little heap from where we stood, but there was no way I was going over to check.

“Stranger things have happened,” she answered.

Maybe, I thought. But I couldn’t think of any.

One by one, the rest of the group joined us against the side of the pyramid. The youngest members of the group, two teenage boys called Chris and David Peterson, gave a hop and hoisted themselves onto the blocks, demonstrating how easy it was if you were a teenage boy. I could see their plump little mother open her mouth to call them back and then think better of it.

A few paces away, the Australian woman, Lydia Carpenter, dug in her purse for cigarettes and moved downwind to light up. Her husband, Ben, joined her, and the two of them stood with their heads together, conversing quietly. I watched them with interest. Lydia always carried a little metal box into which she dropped her ashes, even here in the desert, with nothing but sand and dust at her feet. Which didn’t seem to be good enough for some people. Jerry Morrison, a lawyer from somewhere in California, gave a snort of disgust and muttered something about a “filthy habit” in a stage whisper. He was traveling with his adult daughter, who joined him in moving away and turning their backs. Lydia and Ben stared at them with contempt.

One of the men in our group, a dark-haired giant with a booming voice, began talking about Millie a few paces away, and Kyla and I both perked up our ears and moved forward a step or two to listen.

“No, she is definitely dead,” he said, speaking to a young Asian couple, who were looking worried. Noticing our interest, he gave a small shrug. “I’m a doctor. I checked her pulse before the police pushed me away.”

“I don’t understand how she could die from a fall like that,” I said.

He nodded. “She may have caught her head on the stone and broken her neck. They wouldn’t let me examine her more thoroughly, but there was blood on the back of her neck, at the base of the skull. A tragic accident.”

I wished I could remember his name. Subdued now, he was ordinarily an exuberant personality with the dark skin of his Indian ancestors and the kind of voice that needed no microphone. He could easily have been obnoxious, but somehow instead managed to be extraordinarily likable.

Kyla held out her hand. “Kyla Shore. Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

He beamed at her, forgetting to be somber. “DJ.” His huge hand swallowed hers. “DJ Gavaskar from Los Angeles. And this is my wife, Nimmi.” He beckoned enthusiastically and his wife joined him.

Nimmi was a small woman, slim and catlike. Gold gleamed from her ears and throat, her shirt was of beautiful raw silk, and her bag was a large Louis Vuitton that probably cost two week’s salary—mine, not hers. Dressed to impress. She was the kind of woman it might be fun to dislike at first glance, but her eyes and smile were as warm as her husband’s, and I found myself returning her smile. She held out her hand and gave me a ladylike fingertip handshake. Her fingers were cool and small, like a little bird. I instantly felt large and clumsy.

“Of course we have met, but it is difficult to learn so many names at once,” she said with a smile.

“Jocelyn Shore,” I told her.

She smiled and glanced from me to Kyla. “And are you twins?”

I didn’t dare look at Kyla, although I could sense the sudden arctic chill coming from her direction.

“No. Actually we’re not even sisters. We’re first cousins.”

“Really? Well, the family resemblance is striking. You are both beautiful girls.”

I gave a polite smile, feeling my face redden a little. It always puzzled me how people could say such extraordinarily embarrassing and personal things right to your face without a hint of self-consciousness. And Nimmi was not nearly old enough to get away with calling me a girl.

DJ broke in. “I was just telling Keith and Dawn that I’d examined the body.”

Nimmi gave a delicate shudder. “So tragic.”

I glanced at the other couple. I didn’t know much about the Kims yet, other than they were from Seattle and either one or both of them worked in a lab researching food additives. I liked the way they held hands whenever possible, and kept their eyes on each other when it wasn’t. I suspected they had not been married very long.

Another half hour slipped away and the group attitude changed subtly from horrified shock to annoyed boredom. I’ve noticed it often, the development of a group personality, completely independent of the personalities of any of the members. I saw it in my classes. Somehow one period of world history became fascinating and enjoyable, while the next was complete agony and I struggled to keep the kids awake. A group of adults is the same. After only a few hours together, we’d already gelled into a single entity with its own needs and agenda. Looking around, I could see that while any one of us would claim we were filled with concern and sorrow, the group as a whole was tired and bored and wanted to get on with the day. After all, we had only a week in Egypt, and no one was exactly brokenhearted that Millie Owens wouldn’t be monopolizing our guide’s attention, snooping through bags that didn’t belong to her, and asking the most painfully brainless questions ever asked in the history of human speech. The group was ready to move on.

At last, Anni rejoined us, looking appropriately somber and concerned. She did a quick head count in Arabic under her breath.

“Where are Flora and Fiona? Does anyone see them?” she asked.

We gave a collective sigh and glanced around unenthusiastically. The ditz duo had never yet been on time for a rendezvous. During our meet and greet yesterday, they’d said they were sisters, but they didn’t look alike at all. Flora had short gray hair, cropped like a man’s on the sides, but with a ridiculous fluffy puff on top. She had a way of staring through her glasses as though they were fogged, and she couldn’t focus very well. Fiona was tall and thin, with impossibly black wispy hair, worn long and untamed as God intended. Unlikely bits of it stood at attention at different times, making it hard to concentrate on anything else. Her glasses were racy cat’s-eye horn-rims, her hands large and clawlike. I admit I’d searched surreptitiously for a hint of an Adam’s apple when we’d first met.

DJ spotted them at last near a police officer on a camel. Both camel and officer appeared to be watching them somewhat incredulously. They were looking at a map, which was flapping in the wind, and gesturing to each other wildly. DJ shouted at them and waved Hello Kitty, while Anni hurried forward to retrieve them.

They rejoined the group all in a dither. “We couldn’t find you. We were afraid you’d left,” said Fiona breathlessly.

“Yes, we were hiding behind the big pink umbrella,” said Kyla under her breath.

“Well, we are all here now,” said Anni. “And Mohammad is coming,” she said, referring to her counterpart who had met most of us at the airport and whisked us through customs with speed and efficiency. “He is going to handle everything about…” she hesitated.

I could tell she didn’t know how to refer to the body. She went on gamely, “… about Millie. I have told the police that we know nothing at all about how the accident happened, and we are free to go. Now, what does everyone want to do? We can return to the hotel and rest,” she suggested.

The group howled a protest. We were in Cairo. We were standing against the sun-drenched side of the four-thousand-year-old pyramid of the great pharaoh Khafre. Twenty paces away, a deep and mysterious tunnel guarded by dark men clad in flowing tunics plunged sharply downward into the heart of the pyramid itself. Nearby, just upwind in fact, waited a caravan of camels led by enigmatic denizens of the desert who had delved the secrets of point and click digital cameras. Go to the hotel? The only dead body that could have made that seem attractive was my own.

Alan Stratton spoke up. “I think we’d all like to carry on as planned,” he said firmly.

I looked at him speculatively, noting again the absence of a wedding ring. He was tall, in his early thirties, and traveling alone, which by itself would have made him the most interesting person on the trip, even if he hadn’t also been very nice looking. Kyla and I had noticed him right away and were dying to learn his story and figure out why he was by himself, but so far we hadn’t had a chance. He seemed to linger quietly on the edge of the group, but was never quite part of the group, which was actually something of a feat in itself. While the rest of us huddled together in shock, he’d been one of the few to hurry to Millie’s side after the initial discovery, and I’d seen him talking to the police and then to Anni. Now he was acting as our spokesman, saying aloud what we were all thinking.

Anni looked around at the rest of us, who were nodding like bobblehead dolls on the dashboard of a semi.

“Then that is what we shall do. Now, who said that they wanted to go inside the pyramid?” she asked, spreading a stack of colorful tickets like a deck of cards.

*   *   *

Half an hour later, we hopped back on the bus and took a very short drive around to the western side of the pyramids, where a veritable herd of camels waited for us. This was one of the advantages of being on a tour—we never had to walk very far and we didn’t have to haggle for our own camels. Anni kept us on the bus an extra moment to give instructions about tipping while we pressed our noses to the windows like a pack of Pomeranians.

The scene outside was chaos. Dozens of camels lay in the sand, long bony legs folded beneath them. Small patches of brilliant green fodder were sprinkled through the herd and contrasted sharply with the barren ground. The camels’ humps were covered by the kind of quilted pads used by movers to protect furniture, and those in turn were covered by enormous saddles with very high horns in front and back. Patterned multicolored blankets covered the saddles. These wild desert camels wore coats that were almost white, instead of the sandy color preferred by ordinary city camels in zoos, and managed to looked sleepy and mildly annoyed at the same time.

On the edge of the camel herd stood about ten horses in a variety of colors, looking oddly small and almost apologetic by comparison. It was obvious to all concerned that real men rode camels and only pathetic losers or possibly elderly nuns would stoop to riding around on mere horses. The camel drivers were as exotic as their charges. They wore the traditional Egyptian galabia, a long-sleeved blue, gray, or black tunic that fell to the ankles, and most of them also wore white or red-and-white scarves wrapped about their heads to protect themselves from the sun.

We spilled off the bus in great excitement, only to be met by a squadron of shouting camel drivers. The front-runners shied like startled deer. Dawn Kim actually turned and tried to get back on the bus, but she was blocked by rickety Charlie de Vance, who was still trying to bend his knee replacement far enough to make it down that last step. Anni smoothly turned us over to the one driver with whom she had an arrangement, and the others shuffled off dejectedly.

We followed our camel driver eagerly. The redheaded Peterson boys raced ahead while their mother shouted warnings about staying away from the camels. Fiona and Flora clutched each others arms like hens and kept repeating that they wanted to share a camel. Jerry Morrison held back with his daughter, looking disdainful.

“Filthy,” he said. “I bet they’ve got fleas.”

“Oh, Daddy,” said the daughter. I was pretty sure her name was Kathy, and I was absolutely sure she was way too old to call her father “Daddy.”

I hoped they were just experiencing some temporary culture shock and weren’t intending to complain or bicker the entire trip. I also hoped Jerry was wrong about the fleas.

I stooped to tighten my shoelaces, willing to be one of the last to board a camel rather than be too close to the Morrisons. Or the ditz duo.