Mummy Dearest

by Joan Hess

  Wallace slithered to the floor. She stepped over his outstretched legs and went to the makeshift bar. Caron and Inez joined me.

  “These people are obnoxious,” Caron said in the scathing tone she used when adults did not behave properly. “Can we lock ourselves in our bedroom?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I said, “as long as you promise not to leave. I have no clue what’s going on, but I’m worried. We’re going to stick together until Peter gets back from Cairo.”

  “Are you sure he’s coming back?”

  My jaw dropped. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “He’s gotten awfully perturbed in the past when you’ve meddled,” Inez said helpfully.

  I was going to point out that rescuing Buffy hardly qualified as mere meddling, but instead sighed and told them to stay in their bedroom until everyone was gone. To my regret, Wallace was the only one who was not having a lovely time. Magritta had perked up and was arguing with Lady Emerson. Miss Portia and Miss Cordelia had captured Sittermann, each of them clinging to an arm and staring up with an adoring smile. Mrs. McHaver was lecturing the room at large about the intolerable delays caused by official paperwork and general bungling. Alexander was in conversation with Miriam, who looked giddy, while Lord Bledrock flourished an unopened bottle of gin above his head as if it were a trophy. The Fitzwillies were nibbling at hors d’oeuvres like piranhas.

  I caught my breath when the door opened. An unfamiliar couple came inside and stopped. “Hi,” the woman gushed, seizing the nearest elbow, which happened to belong to Lord Bledrock. “We’re the Adamses of Morning Glory, Maine. I’m Debbie, and this is Donnie. I believe our son Godfrey was playing cards in the lobby with your”—she looked at him—“granddaughter yesterday.”

  “How do you do,” said Lord Bledrock helplessly.

  She wiggled her fingers at Sittermann. “When Mr. Sittermann found out we live in Maine, he asked if we knew MacLeod College. I told him it was the funniest coincidence, because our oldest daughter went to MacLeod and graduated two years ago with a degree in musicology. We didn’t know Dr. King, since she was in a different department, but Donnie and I feel awful just the same. Mr. Sittermann insisted that we come up here and share our fond memories with all of you.”

  “And have a drink,” Donnie said. “I could use a drink.”

  “By all means,” Lord Bledrock said, inching away from the woman. “Alexander is our bartender. He’s my son.”

  Mrs. Adams realized she’d stuck her foot in something. She and Donnie went to the bar and waited in mute apprehension until Alexander came over to make them drinks. Minutes later, three teenaged boys peered into the room. Sittermann boomed at them to make themselves at home. I knocked on the door to Caron and Inez’s room and suggested they come out to entertain their poker friends. Had the hallway been wide enough, I had no doubt Sittermann would have arranged for a tour bus to stop outside the suite and spew out its passengers.

  I squeezed through the crowd and sat down next to Wallace. “You and me,” I said, patting his knee, “alone at last.”

  “Not even a damn cat,” he mumbled.

  The party broke up only when Chief Inspector el-Habachi came into the room several hours later and announced that he needed the room to be vacated so he could question me. Mrs. Adams, who’d not figured out who Lord Bledrock was but had figured out how to replenish her drink, threw herself around the old boy’s neck and hugged him until his eyes bulged. Purses were gathered up from the floor. Miss Portia and Miss Cordelia cackled as Sittermann offered to escort them to their room. Mrs. McHaver thumped out, trailed by Miriam. The girls wistfully said good-bye to the boys. Lord Bledrock gave the hotel employee a thick wad of notes and told him to clean up the room. Magritta was still arguing with Lady Emerson about an obscure site with a convoluted name as they staggered out the door.

  The evacuation took ten minutes. I at last stood up and made sure Sittermann hadn’t found a way to sneak back in and slither under the sofa. “Oh, Mahmoud,” I said as I emerged from my hiding place, “I’m so glad to see you. They’re insane, all of them. They talk so loudly while consuming an astonishing quantity of alcohol. Not one of them would have bothered to look at me if I screamed ‘Fire!’ Shall we put the chairs back on the balcony and sit out there while the room is cleaned?”

  “An excellent idea.” He picked up one chair and I dragged the other. Once we were seated, he said, “There’s a man on the floor in the corner. Do you know him?”

  “Wallace Laxenby, the photographer,” I said. “I was using him for a backrest. I don’t know what we ought to do with him. He’s not staying at this hotel. Magritta left with Lady Emerson.” I leaned back and peeked at the curled figure. “I suppose we can just leave him there. What do you think?”

  Mahmoud shrugged. “It’s your suite. Would you like a drink before room service takes away the ice?”

  “Ice water would be nice,” I admitted, “with a splash of scotch.” I leaned back and gazed at the moon, obscured by clouds yet making its presence known. “Did you talk to Peter?”

  Mahmoud returned to the balcony with my drink. “He will arrive back in Luxor tomorrow at five o’clock. I told him that Aisha was eager to meet you and hoped you might come for dinner, but he said that it would be better if you and he had some privacy. Caron and Inez are still invited. Unless they object, Bakr will be outside the hotel at five to drive them to my house and drive them back here at ten.”

  “Is he really pissed?”

  “I’m not familiar with that word in that context, but if you’re asking if he’s angry, yes, very much so. He did not shout or curse, of course. He spoke quietly and politely. That may have been because he was in the ambassador’s reception room.”

  “Ah well.” I propped my feet on the rail, cradling my drink in my hands. “Magritta told me that Nabil didn’t survive. Did you find out if he used methamphetamines?”

  “His family and those he worked with all agreed that he would not knowingly use such drugs. His wife told me that he was reluctant to apply an herbal liniment when his muscles were sore. At your husband’s suggestion, we sent the clothes Nabil was wearing to our lab. They found traces of loose tobacco in his pocket. He rarely smoked, but he would accept a cigarette if it was offered to him.”

  “The tobacco was laced with the drug?”

  “So it seems. Someone gave him the cigarette, and he saved it for a later time. He was ecstatic when he found the shabti in the rubble in the pit. He wrapped it carefully and headed here as quickly as he could. Along the way, he smoked the cigarette to calm his nerves, although it had the opposite effect. He became increasingly excited as he imagined his entrance with this priceless treasure. His heart was pounding, and it’s likely he was having difficulty breathing by the time he raced up the service stairs and along the hall to Lord Bledrock’s suite.”

  “How did he know where it was?” I asked. “I don’t imagine he was familiar with the hotel layout.”

  “An employee in the basement told him,” Mahmoud said. “He shouldn’t have, but Nabil was respected in working-class circles. He said Nabil was jabbering like a madman, waving his hands and unable to stand still.”

  “And when he finally opened the door of the suite, his heart crashed,” I murmured. “He never got to present Magritta with the shabti. All those years they toiled together in the heat and dirt, praying to come upon something of significance. How very sad.”

  “His only brush with fame was a photo of him taken ten years ago at a dig at Saqqara and published in KMT, an Egyptology journal. It was framed and hung in a place of honor in his house. He was in the background with a dozen workmen, but his wife pointed him out.”

  “The question is who might haven given him the lethal cigarette, “I said.

  Mahmoud shrugged. “The workmen said he was always fair about assigning tasks and did his share. No trouble with family members or neighbors. He was devout, but not to excess. This was not a crime of passion or personal vengeance
. I think we have to conclude the motive lies with those involved in the excavation.”

  “All of the people who were here when you arrived were at the dig that afternoon,” I said. “Not the couple from Maine, who were invited by the elusive Mr. Sittermann—which he did to annoy me.”

  Mahmoud rumbled under his breath. “Sittermann is elusive, as you said. There is no record of him entering the country, so we cannot verify any information from his passport. He has been to the Cairo offices of several ministries that oversee foreign development and tourism. They’ve met him, but no one has seen his credentials.”

  “Why didn’t you take him into custody when you arrived here?” I demanded.

  “For what reason? We have laws to protect the populace from police harassment and unlawful confinement, as you do in your country. Until he has broken a law, we can do nothing about him.”

  “Are you keeping him under surveillance?”

  “With limited success, I am sorry to say. We have even assigned undercover agents to follow him into hotels and nightclubs. One night he waved them over and offered to buy them drinks. When he doesn’t seem to care, my men have no problem sticking with him. When he wishes to be rid of them, he vanishes.” Mahmoud rocked back in his chair and glanced at me. “Do you know of any laws he may have broken?”

  I shook my head. “If I think of something, I’ll let you know. Are you planning to question the Brits and Americans?”

  “They’ll be asked if they saw anyone give something to Nabil, but I have small hope anyone will say something of significance. You saw for yourself the babbling and confusion at the site. Many people were already in the Valley when we managed to have the entrance closed. Others”—he smiled at me—“bullied their way in. But yes, we will question all of them tomorrow. At the moment, I’m hiding out from my superiors, government representatives from Cairo, and the media. The young woman’s abduction and daring rescue make a more compelling story than the death of a local workman.”

  “What did Buffy have to say about her ordeal? If she was traumatized, she disguised it well.”

  “Miss Franz explained at length how she was too exhausted to remember all the details. She was also upset about split ends, although she would not elaborate. Is that the same as loose ends?”

  “No,” I said, twirling a curl at him.

  Mahmoud nodded thoughtfully. “Split ends. I must remember that. Anyway, her recitation was disjointed, which is why I’m so late getting here. After she insisted on being brought back to the hotel, I spread out all my notes and tried to put them in a logical sequence.” He pressed his fingertips together and propped his chin on them, looking like a professor confronted with a paradox. “On the morning you were at Wadi es Sebua, she decided to go ahead of your group in order to find a place to sit in the shade and file a broken fingernail. The two horsemen rode up, and one of them made some kind of remark in English. She described it as a ‘smart-ass pickup line.’ Whatever she said in response angered them. One of them grabbed her arm and yanked her across his saddle. She made it clear that this was extremely uncomfortable and offered to show me bruises on her abdomen. I declined. After a long while of being jounced, she was allowed to get down and have a drink of water. She voiced her displeasure with such passion that her hands were secured behind her and a cloth bag was put over her head.”

  I could almost hear Buffy describing the scene to Mahmoud, who must have been biting his lip. “Does she know where they took her?”

  “The first night they slept in a rocky recess in a mountain. The second day they came to a road and a cluster of mud-brick huts. Miss Franz was permitted a short amount of time for personal concerns, then was tossed in the backseat of a car. She remained bound with her head covered while they drove to the Kharga Oasis. She was very vague about how she ended up in the hotel room. She claims she passed out from the heat and the tainted air in the bag. When she regained consciousness, she was lying on the bed. She didn’t see anyone until you unlocked the door.”

  “She has no idea who these men were?” I asked. “Did either of them speak English?”

  “She says not. Her description could fit half the young men in this country. The military has sent men along the road south of Kharga to identify the place where she was transferred to a car. I won’t be surprised if the huts have been abandoned for decades. They’re used only by passing travelers who want to exercise or rest in the shade for a few minutes.”

  I did not say that I would have been thrilled beyond my wildest expectations had I seen similar huts on the highway coming back from Kharga. Mahmoud had spent enough time with Peter to share his disapproval of my more creative escapades. The relationship between husband and wife deserved discretion, but cops blabbed to one another like mouthy kindergartners. I wasn’t about to mention my undignified moment behind a rock.

  “No one saw her being carried inside?”

  “There’s a kitchen door that opens onto an alley. They could have transferred in a matter of seconds. The police over there went to the Desert Inn and searched the premises. The property is owned by an old man with cloudy eyes and a mind that no longer functions well. His daughter said the only guests were two men who arrived yesterday afternoon. She prepared food for them. The police found them in the room. They claimed to be itinerant laborers heading for Cairo to find work at a construction site. They were planning to take a bus north in the morning, and were unaware of an American girl in another room.”

  “Did they admit seeing me in the corridor?” I asked.

  “They told the police they heard footsteps and went to look. They concluded that you were a crazy foreigner, German or French, possibly a prostitute. They were debating whether or not to tell the daughter when Kenya scored a goal. After that, they said they forgot the incident.”

  “Those jerks,” I muttered. The ghastly drive across the desert to Kharga had played havoc with my hair, and I’d been too focused on rescuing Buffy to put on lipstick after our arrival. I had not been at my most becoming. By no means, however, had I resembled a prostitute of any nationality. I went inside the parlor, glowered at Wallace, and added a few drops of scotch to my watery drink.

  “Buffy was lying,” I said as I returned. “She called Samuel on a cell phone. She had food and water. Someone came into the room.”

  “The daughter. She was afraid she’d get into trouble with the police if she admitted she knew Buffy was there. She swore she had no idea why the men put Buffy in the room and locked the door. As for the cell phone, she doesn’t have one because of the expense. The police found one in the room the men were staying in, but the younger one claimed he found it in the street and didn’t know how to make it work. One of the policemen verified that its battery was dead.”

  Neither Mahmoud nor I was satisfied with anyone’s story, including Buffy’s. We picked at the more glaring holes, then gave up for the night. Before he left, he made me promise to stay on the hotel premises and within arm’s reach of Caron and Inez until Peter returned. When I asked if I should consider myself under house arrest, he merely chuckled.

  Wallace was snoring in the corner. I propped a pillow under his head, went to Caron and Inez’s room to warn them not to be alarmed if they heard peculiar noises during the night, and collapsed in bed.

  It had been one long day.

  CHAPTER 16

  “This is stupid,” Caron grumbled as we trudged downstairs for breakfast, less than thrilled at the opportunity to appreciate my company all day. “We were stuck here yesterday while you were off pretending to be Indiana Jones. Now we’re stuck here today as well. I don’t see why we can’t go anywhere until Peter gets back. What if he decides to stay in Cairo another day or two?”

  “Couldn’t we at least go to Luxor Temple?” said Inez. “I didn’t have a chance to take pictures of the barque shrine of Alexander the Great. There’s a relief of him dressed like a pharaoh.”

  I herded them out to the patio. “We are not going to Luxor Temple or anyplac
e else. There’s something going on that seems to involve the excavation in the Valley of the Kings. Two people have been murdered, three if you count Oskar Vonderlochen last spring.”

  “I thought his fall was determined to be an accident,” Inez said, covertly checking the other tables to see if the boys were there. “Alexander may not have agreed, but he didn’t give a reason.”

  “He was just trying to get Mother’s attention,” Caron said coolly. “Remember that new sophomore last year who told everybody she was an orphan and lived in a cardboard box in the woods? Everybody felt so sorry for her until one of the teachers heard the story and went to the principal. It turned out she was mad at her parents because they wouldn’t let her get a learner’s permit. How lame can you get?”

  I ordered coffee from a waiter and sent the girls to the buffet. I wasn’t looking forward to spending the day with them either, but I didn’t want to risk anything that might further corrode my relationship with Peter. Why he ever believed a wedding ring would transform me into a meek little wife eluded me. We’d bumped heads so often in the past that I knew the contours of his skull. I was reflecting on this when I saw Salima’s face appear between two flowerpots set on the low wall. She scanned the terrace, then agilely hopped over the wall and strolled over to the table.

  “Had to make sure the waiters didn’t see me,” she said as she sat down. “I refuse to pay the exorbitant price for breakfast. It costs as much as dinner in Cairo. Maybe Caron or Inez will let me have a roll.”

  “Where have you been lately?” I asked.

  “Here and there, but not risking my life to save a rather vapid girl. You’re quite the talk of Luxor. If you want to hold a press conference, I’ll be your interpreter. I did it once for one of your senators. He was on a fact-finding mission, he said, although I don’t know what facts he thought he’d find in a hotel room with his virile young aide.”