Death on Tour

by Janice Hamrick

  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.

 
“Oh, she came out of it smelling like a rose. I think the only things I walked away with were my clothes, my clubs, and my stamp collection. Not that that isn’t worth a pretty penny. Sue Anne never understood stamps,” he added with a touch of bitterness. “No, she got the house and my Social Security checks, and I got Yvonne. When you think of it, I’m a kept man now.”

  He leaned over to nuzzle Yvonne, who nuzzled back. I looked away quickly.

  “I’ve got plenty for the both of us,” said Yvonne with quiet satisfaction. “I was a criminal defense lawyer for twenty years, before I moved into corporate takeovers. You know,” she added to Charlie, “if your kids would start speaking to you again, I think we’d be completely happy.”

  Appalled, I decided it was time to change the subject. “Criminal law? You must have run into your share of interesting cases.”

  “Oh my, yes. So many horrible people, most of them. But they paid through the nose for my assistance. I was quite good, you know,” she added.

  I considered and then decided there was no harm in asking. “What do you think about the two murders that we’ve had?”

  Charlie looked blank. “Two?” he asked, puzzled.

  Yvonne gave me a sharp glance. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. Dawn told me about the shopkeeper at Abu Simbel when you all got back. Too much of a coincidence, is that what you are thinking?”

  I nodded.

  “I tell you what I’ve noticed. Not everyone on this trip is exactly what they say they are. Take Jerry Morrison. He says he’s a real estate attorney out in California, and maybe he is, but he is mighty nervous about something that’s going on back there. I thought he was going to have apoplexy when he found out there was no Internet available on the ship. And talk to his daughter. She says he pulled this trip out of thin air only a week ago and insisted she come with him. Sounds like someone needed to get himself out of Dodge in a hurry.”

  “All the way to Egypt?”

  She shrugged. “Not a bad place to hide. It’s not easy to get around in this country if you’re not on a tour. And the tour itself provides plenty of protection. Armed guard on the bus, people around all the time. Plus, I’m pretty sure this was one of the places his daughter really wanted to see. And he needed a pretty big carrot to get her to miss a week of classes. She mentioned it wasn’t even her spring break.”

  So she had. But Jerry on the lam from shady connections back home? Although pleasant to contemplate, it seemed pretty farfetched to me. Moreover, I couldn’t see any connection with the murders.

  “You’re thinking that doesn’t have anything to do with anything.” Yvonne smiled at me. “Probably doesn’t, but you never know. You never know what small thing might turn out to be important. I spent my career making connections among seemingly unrelated things. You can’t believe some of the information I gathered when I was working with my criminals … I mean, clients. Background stuff, details that didn’t have much to do with the case at hand, but which turned out to give me an edge when I was building the defense. You have to pay attention to the things that don’t make sense.”

  Which meant I should be on high alert right now. Nevertheless, I excused myself and escaped below as quickly as I could.

  Wednesday, Edfu

  Wake to find your ship has arrived on the shores of the ancient city of Edfu. After a leisurely breakfast, board a horse-drawn carriage for the drive through town to the Temple of Horus, where a magnificent black stone statue of the falcon god guards the gates. Built during the reign of Cleopatra only 2,000 years ago, the temple is young by Egyptian standards and in almost perfect condition. Return to your ship to continue your cruise down the Nile. Spend the afternoon on the sundeck, sipping drinks and watching white-clad farmers working their fields as they have done for millennia.

  —WorldPal pamphlet

  Chapter 9

  HAWKERS AND HORSES

  During the night while we slept, the Nile Lotus churned its way downstream sixty-five miles to the desert town of Edfu. Our wake-up call split the air and our eardrums at some ungodly hour, and Kyla and I dressed wordlessly and staggered down two flights of stairs to the dining room, looking and feeling a lot like zombies, only less alive. Three cups of coffee at breakfast revived us to an extent, enough anyway for Kyla to glare at me over the steam and say, “I’m never going on a tour again. Never.”

  “Fine.”

  “Really,” she said. “Never.”

  “Sure, that’s fine,” I answered.

  “No, I really mean it. No one should have to wake up this early on vacation.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” I answered.

  She glared at me, annoyed. My third cup of coffee was kicking in, and I was starting to feel better. I eyed the buffet with growing interest, watching a cook in a crisp white jacket expertly flip an omelet from a skillet onto a plate and hand it to a woman with a smile.

  “You don’t care.”

  “Nope. Want an omelet?”

  She followed my gaze. “Sure, what the hell. Bring me a bagel, too.”

  The rest of the group appeared in twos and threes in varying states of alertness. Anni arrived looking refreshed and happy. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to win my bet with Kyla. If Anni hadn’t had a nervous breakdown or an explosion by this time, after two plane rides and two murders, she wasn’t going to have any trouble with the next few days. I had a good feeling. Nothing else could possibly go wrong and, besides that, nothing that had gone wrong over the past few days was any of my business. I would turn Millie’s bag over to Anni on our last day, and she could dole out the stolen items as she saw fit. And I would concentrate on relaxing and enjoying the rest of the trip.

  We met in the lobby a half hour later. The early morning air was clear and surprisingly cool as we disembarked. The ship moored at a dock right beside the shore, and we had only to walk across a short gangway to reach the bank. The smell of horse sweat and stale urine wafted to us on the light breeze, strong and acrid in the crisp, bright air. At least twenty black carriages waited patiently along the landing, some with awnings, some open to the sky, all pulled by small dusty horses wearing blinders.

  “Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick,” swore Jerry, taking one brief whiff and slapping a hand over his nose and mouth. “What a freaking shithole.”

  Yvonne de Vance pursed her lips and gave him a cold stare from haughty eyes. Lydia Carpenter stepped around him as though avoiding a particularly foul dog deposit on the sidewalk. He noticed and gave her a mocking smile. I looked around. Ben and Lydia were here, once again flanking their niece Jane like bodyguards. I did not know what to make of it at all, but I gave a mental shrug and told myself it was none of my business. Which only had the effect of making it even more interesting. Maybe I could get Kyla to chat with Ben and Lydia later, since they had been avoiding my gaze since Abu Simbel.

  I looked at the horses carefully—I’d read many travelers’ tales on the tourist Web sites bemoaning the treatment of the Edfu carriage horses. To my relief, the animals, although scrawny and ungroomed, did not appear to be either starving or mistreated. Anni arrived, spoke to the lead driver, and then herded us into an orderly line.

  “Do not tip your driver until you get back here,” she warned. “He will wait for you while we tour the temple. And remember, the fee has already been paid. If you do wish to tip, you can give him two pounds. If he takes your picture, you can add a little more, but do not give more than five pounds. The drivers compare tips with each other and brag if they get a large tip. This causes some of them to start demanding money of their passengers.” She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “They are becoming very rude, and they sometimes frighten the tourists.”

  It sounded exactly as though she was describing the bears at Yosemite. Don’t feed the animals, they might bite. And conversely, she made us sound like a nervous herd of cattle on the plains, looking for an excuse to stampede.

  When our turn came, Kyla and I hopped into a dilapidated black
carriage pulled by an unenthusiastic white nag, which left Alan paired with Jerry Morrison. According to Jerry, Kathy’s ankle had swollen up like a balloon, and she hadn’t even made it down to breakfast. Jerry appeared alone, looking a little lost as he realized that the rest of us were looking away just like kids avoiding the teacher’s eye in the hopes of not being selected for a question. He had not made himself pleasant to a single person on the tour—and didn’t look as though he was going to start now. I could see the two men eyeing each other with dislike as we drove away.

  Our driver cheerfully pointed out the sights on the short drive through town and up the hill to the temple. We had to lean forward to see because the carriage had a protective awning, complete with a red fringe. The tune of “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” kept running through my head in a most aggravating way. And why should I suffer alone?

  I hummed a few bars under my breath. Kyla whipped around on me like a Doberman on a housebreaker.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no. Tell me you did not do that,” she moaned.

  I hummed a little more, just to ensure she wouldn’t be able to get it out of her head, and then leaned back, content.

  Edfu as a town teetered on a very fine edge between prosperity and devastation. Most of the tiny shops that we slowly clip-clopped past were humble indeed, and the atmosphere in general was run-down and somewhat desperate. Still, men were out and about, sitting and smoking in small cafés or talking with animated hand gestures and laughing, and the shops were open, which was a good sign. The recent decrease in tourism had hit towns like Edfu very hard, but they were surviving in spite of it all. And then too, the morning was beautiful, and we were in the mood to be pleased with everything.

  “You never see any women sitting and eating in the cafés,” said Kyla thoughtfully.

  “Probably because that’s where the men are.”