by Gerry Belle
“Thank you for calling me,” the detective murmured. “You were correct to do so.”
“I’m afraid I may have gotten you into a bit of a quarrel with the tribal police, from the looks of things,” Zhara said quietly, a slight question in her tone, causing the inspector to raise one dark eyebrow in amusement.
“I thought you were enjoying the show with your small entourage from the bar,” he quipped, flashing a set of all-too-white teeth against his dusky skin.
“Well...I wouldn’t say ‘enjoying’ exactly,” Zhara drawled slowly, then grinned. “Ok, maybe a little.”
A smile flashed briefly, then dimmed on the inspector’s face. “You were right though,” he added in a low tone. “Appeared to be an accident until a small red dot the exact same size as the one found on Ahmad Aboud was noted at the autopsy.”
Zhara’s stomach fell. “So she might have been murdered?” she asked.
“The same way Ahmad Aboud ‘might have been murdered’ you mean?” The inspector snorted with derision. “Yes, I think so. As far as we can ascertain, they had nothing in common except that from the observation of others, they were both rather abusive spouses. That’s it.”
Zhara bade the inspector good night and went to bed with a lead weight in her stomach. A murderer was on the loose and she felt very unsettled about it. She got little sleep that night as her mind roamed over and over on the details of the day and the people who came and went on the steeply dangerous path.
Chapter Ten
Whale Shark
Zhara rose the next morning exhausted and worried. With Inspector Jaber’s permission, she had hired a car and she, Beatriz, and Basilio had departed immediately for the Red Sea at Aqaba.
Settling into a comfortable beach chair at the Intercontinental Resort, Zhara heaved a sigh of relief. She was glad to be roasting in the sun and looking forward to a snorkeling excursion or two to try and see the elusive whale shark that could occasionally be seen in the warm waters of the Red Sea.
Zhara liked the Intercontinental. It had the best beach in Aqaba, though many of her more arrogant acquaintances from the Embassy in Amman insisted that the Kempinski was the best hotel on the Red Sea. Zhara had stayed there once and found its overly-modern edifice, glass-enclosed bathrooms and narrow beach to be less comfortable and less enjoyable than the Intercontinental. So, best or not, it was not the best in her book.
She also couldn’t help remembering that once on a cruise down the Nile, she had almost insisted that they take the newest Kempinski ship instead of the more familiar Oberoi vessel they had booked. Carlton had overruled her and several days later she was ever so glad he had. As their cruiser had rounded a bend in the river near the Valley of the Kings, a smoldering heap of metal was run aground in a mass of reeds. Nothing remained of the brand new Kempinski boat except the keel. Someone had left an iron on in their suite while at dinner, was the rumor. Clearly, the boat had been especially flammable.
All Zhara could think at the time was that she bet those passengers were ever so grateful that the dam in the Nile now made it impossible for the many crocodiles that had once lined the river to immigrate upstream. Her vivid imagination had her shivering at the recollection of what it might have been like had the passengers had to jump into a Nile full of hungry crocs.
The next two weeks were filled with nothing but sun and water. It took three attempts on private snorkeling excursions to finally set eyes on the beautifully spotted and massive whale shark that she’d come to see. At first, as she’d hovered just below the level of the water, the first sight of the whale shark had scared her almost witless.
The huge, dark shape, as it surged towards her, held its enormous mouth agape. In her mind, tales of Jonah being swallowed by the whale struck her nervous system with all the force of a sledge hammer. Then, to her stunned mind, the vast shape simply swam by her, ignoring her completely.
It took a few minutes for her nervous system to recover. Then slowing her breath, she surfaced, gave the thumbs up sign to the hovering boat and dove again, reminding herself that whale sharks ate small fish and that the gaping mouth was just a way to scoop them up.
Floating lazily, she calmed herself and tried to emit only loving, curious, positive thoughts. To her amazement, the huge shape slowly emerged once more from the depths, this time its mouth mostly closed. It rose slowly to where she hung suspended in awe and swirled past her - one dark eye roving over her in curiosity.
Gathering her wits and her courage, Zhara lazily raised a hand and let it slide slowly along the hugely-long body of the whale shark as it meandered past. Twice more the enormous being swirled around her, allowing her to touch its massive form. Then, it disappeared into the depths of the sea and she saw no more of it.
Returning to the deck of the boat, Zhara could say nothing. She simply sat in the sun and cried with wonder and awe. The two men who captained the vessel simply nodded, patted her shoulder gently and handed her a bottle of water and a towel. Clearly, they were used to the emotional magnificence that the whale shark must often evoke.
After showering and drying her hair, Zhara slept for fourteen hours, emotionally drained from the experience and physically depleted from hours in the sun and water. Beatriz looked in on her occasionally, but left her to recover. She’d witnessed her lady’s emotional state when she’d returned and knew that some things were just too precious to share right away.
Chapter Eleven
Acquaintances
The following afternoon, Zhara, accompanied by Beatriz and Basilio, took a leisurely shopping trip around the city. To their surprise they kept running into people they’d met before.
At the Damaskino Roastery, where Zhara had insisted they go to pick up some wonderful coffee for friends, they saw the weedily, acne-laden Ralph Johnson. He was scribbling furiously in his tattered notebook and Zhara hoped he’d be able to pull off at least an informative article to appease the demands of his mother that he become a world famous travel writer.
He’d greeted them warmly and tried to hug Zhara, who had smiled at him, gestured at his bulky backpack, stepped back and said, “How is your trip Ralph? Are you having a good time?”
“Yes, I’m having a wonderful time,” he said grinning and pushing his sliding glasses back up his zitty nose. “Mother will be pleased with my notes. I’m getting her some coffee,” he added, gesturing at a small packet the merchant had placed near him on the counter. “She’s going to love this!” Zhara had nodded, bid him goodbye and gone about her other shopping rather more quickly than she’d planned.
At their next stop, Peace Paradise spices, they’d run into Mrs. Nettlepoole. Rather than seeming happy to see them, she scowled darkly and stumped off towards the tour bus at the entrance, her cane making heavy thumping noises as though she was warning her fellow tour-goers out of her way. Zhara and Beatriz looked at each other and broke into laughter.
They also saw the honeymooners, Gordon and Theresa, canoodling as usual, over the jewelry counter at Talha Odeh, a local shop with a wide selection of both original pieces and the regular touristy schlock of tacky rings and fake beaded necklaces.
Rumors were already circulating about a virus that was sweeping China and some of the European port cities and Zhara felt their time in Jordan was soon to be over. Making a long distance call to her doctor in the States, Zhara spent half an hour getting facts on what the news was beginning to call a pandemic and finding out what the best action might be to safeguard her small family unit.
That night she took Basilio and Beatriz out to the Red Sea Grill for an evening of fine seafood. They sat in the open air, gazing at the sea and reviewing the wonderful trip they’d had.
To their surprise, Inspector Jaber appeared in the doorway to the dining room. Zhara waved at him and he started in surprise. Slowly he advanced across the floor and bowed a bit stiffly from the waist.
“How are you Inspector?” Zhara asked. “Would you like to join us?”
His usually s
toic face showed a wave of uncertainty, then settled. “Yes. Yes I would. Thank you.” He pulled out the chair opposite Zhara, settled himself into it heavily and then sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see the three of you. You do rather seem to be everywhere.”
“Well, you’ll be rid of us soon,” Zhara laughed. “We’ve heard about this virus that seems to be sweeping the globe and are trying to come up with the best solution to stay safe and healthy. What have you heard?” she asked, wondering if he’d gotten any more updated news.
The Inspector filled them in on the briefings he’d received from the Jordanian Ministry of Health, but they seemed to hold about the same information as what Zhara’s doctor had given her.
After sitting in a glum silence for a few minutes as the full impact of what the virus could mean for the world seeped in, Zhara shook herself out of her slump and asked, “What brings you to the Red Sea Grill and Aqaba, Inspector?”
“I wondered when you were going to get around to asking,” the detective said with a grin. “You are usually quite nosy!” Basilio snorted and Beatriz hid a smile behind her napkin as Zhara’s mouth fell open, then snapped shut.
“I am not nosy!” she stated emphatically. “I just usually happen to be in the wrong place at the right time.” With that she turned her nose up a bit and sipped her wine, trying to regain her composure. Then, finally, relaxing, she started to giggle. “Ok, so I am a bit nosy! Tell us why you’re here. Another murder?” Pulling back in her chair she looked at him and said, “Nooooo…”
“Yessss,” Inspector Jaber said, scowling darkly. “Another painfully awful spouse. They were staying at the Movenpick. This time it was another man in his sixties who apparently beat his rather fragile wife on a regular basis. He had a horrible accident in the spa. Seems he got locked in the cold suite accidentally after having used the sauna.”
The Inspector continued, “The suite has a rather spectacular view out over the sea. The juxtaposition of heat in the view with the physical environment of cold is supposed to be very therapeutic, or so I was informed by the spa manager. The treatment is very popular, but no one saw anything. The cold suite has a timer on it which was smashed so the automatic unlock didn’t take place. He died of hypothermia.”
Zhara, Beatriz, and Basilio all winced. Cold, wow, after weeks of heat, that just seemed horribly wrong.
“They were staying at the Movenpick,” Jaber continued. “As, interestingly enough, are some of the same players from the vicinity of the other deaths,” he added.
Zhara raised an eyebrow. “Really? Who?”
“Ralph Johnson, Mrs. Nettlepoole, Jill Clark and the Smiths,” the Inspector added, waiting for their reactions with a cocked eyebrow.
“Jill Clark?” Zhara asked incredulously. “What is she doing there?”
“It seems she decided she should actually see the real Jordan, as she put it, before she returns home to the U.S. It appears she thinks being locked up in her husband’s family compound doesn’t really count as seeing the country,” Jaber supplied this explanation with a roll of his dark eyes.
“Yes, that seems a bit odd. I’d have thought she’d be only too ready to get on a plane and get away from all of this,” Zhara said thoughtfully.
“Who are the Smiths?” Beatriz asked suddenly. “Do we know them?”
The Inspector laughed merrily, “Oh, trust me, you know them better than you want to,” he added, waggling his eyebrows.
Basilio grimaced and then hooted, “The honeymooners!”
“Indeed,” Jaber said, laughingly confirming Basilio’s guess. “The honeymooners.”
“So are you just here for dinner, or is there a greater plan in the works?” Zhara asked, a smile still on her face from Basilio’s obvious revulsion at the memories of the canoodling honeymooners.
The Inspector laid a finger alongside his nose and said, “There is indeed a greater plan in the works. I’m not sure what it is, to be honest, but the tour group is supposed to be coming here for dinner and I thought it couldn’t hurt to observe them and let them know I’m near. Perhaps it will make the killer nervous,” he added with a shrug of his broad shoulders and a discontented frown.
“Is there anything that ties these murders together?” Zhara asked quietly.
“So far, only the small round mark on the first two victims and the timer on the cold suite had been smashed with a round object of the same size,” Jaber said. “That’s it. No fingerprints. No witnesses. Nothing. The object could be anything from Mrs. Nettlepoole’s cane to Ralph Johnson’s foldable walking stick. The honeymooners have a flashlight of the same diameter that I have no idea what they get up to with,” Jaber said with a grimace of revulsion. “Jill Clark’s been seen with a folding baton, now that her husband isn’t around to protect her. So it could be any of them, or none of them.”
“The motive is such a general one, too,” Zhara muttered quietly. “Jill Clark could have killed her husband, then added the others just to make it seem like a group of killings that had nothing to do with her. The honeymooners could simply be doing it as punishment as they are so happily chained together and don’t want to see anyone else have a bad marriage.”
“I vote for Mrs. Nettlepoole,” Basilio said, grinning. “She’s just an old grouch and probably killed them because they got in her way. She tried to whack me with that cane once, so I’d put nothing past her.”
His mother laughed, “Fine, then I’m going with Ralph Johnson, who has been driven to desperation by his smothering mother and is killing off abusive spouses as a pseudo revenge.” Basilio nodded agreement, winking at his mother when she reared back in indignation at his agreement about smothering mothers.
The whole table laughed, though Inspector Jaber appeared pensive at these recitations of possible motives. The four of them let the subject drop and began the first course, fresh oysters on the half-shell with lemon and tabasco. None of them seemed to want to talk and all concentrated on their food. Though they tried to ignore it, the murders and the virus that seemed to be sweeping the globe weighed on their minds like a veil over the evening.
When the van bringing the guests from the Movenpick Hotel arrived, Zhara called out a greeting to each of the guests she knew and the variety of responses was varied and less than illuminating.
Jill Clark rushed over, hugged them all, gravely thanked the Inspector for his work on the case, though it remained unsolved, she added, glaring at him - then returned to stand beside Ralph Johnson, who studiously ignored the entire party.
Mrs. Nettlepoole had saluted them with a low wave of her cane, glowered at the detective, then turned her back on their party and stumped away to the seafood buffet. The honeymooners appeared, as always, oblivious to anyone else, cooing and feeding each other shrimp from a shared plate.
Claude and Iona Wright, a couple from Iowa that Zhara had met at the hotel on the Dead Sea, also joined the group. If Zhara remembered correctly, which she did, they had been terrified to talk to any of the wait staff and had hesitantly asked Zhara, “Do any of these foreigners speak English?”
Zhara had laughed gently and said, “Of course they speak English, this is a tourist hotel and the common language of world tourism is English. And, of course, in this country - you are the foreigners.” The couple had shrunk back from her as though she’d cast a handful of stones at them.
They did proceed to a table and managed to order, casting fearful glances at their very calm, blank-faced waiter. Their obvious terror made Zhara wonder why they’d bothered to travel outside of Iowa at all.
When they’d prayed very loudly over their meals, Zhara had to keep from rolling her eyes at them in annoyance. Really, pushily obnoxious in a country not their own - it was just so rude, so arrogant and so entitled that she’d wanted to walk over to their table and slap them. She’d managed to just ignore them with the aid of another glass of Sambuca.
None of the potential suspects seemed to behave in any way out of the ordinary, which irk
ed Zhara to no end, and, she was sure, didn’t please the Inspector either. They all made their goodbyes in the lobby and the Inspector left, saying, “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.” Basilio had grinned at the Inspector, causing him to scowl and turn his back on them.
Zhara smacked his arm and said, “Really, Basilio! You shouldn’t needle the Inspector. He’s under a lot of pressure.”
“I know,” he grinned cheekily, then added, “But it’s so much fun to be able to give a policeman a little bit of payback, that I can’t help myself.”
Beatriz had only shaken her head, thinking that raising a son in a country with corrupt officials and oppressive police did have certain impacts that just could not be changed. At least now he wouldn’t be punished for those beliefs. Freedom of speech was not something that could be taken for granted in many countries. Even a small jibe like what he’d given the Inspector, could have had serious consequences in Bolivia. Never had she been so grateful to have found a position with Lady Six. Even with a murderer lurking, the benefits of their new life were ever present.