Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [3]
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