Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [60]
“I bet nobody misses them,” I said, by way of a conversation starter.
Keith looked at me earnestly. “You don’t understand how devastating the dam has been on the environment here. The crocodiles aren’t the only creatures affected. Without the annual floods, the farmland is not renewed every year. Farmers are resorting to using chemical fertilizers, which have been killing wildlife and plants. Even the papyrus reeds are dying out. And people have been able to build much nearer to the banks of the Nile, which causes more pollution than ever to reach the river water.”
I was already regretting that I’d said anything. “I’m sure you’re right,” I agreed quickly.
Dawn gave Keith a half-amused, half-exasperated look. “She doesn’t want to talk about the environment, Keith. No one wants to talk about the environment.”
He frowned at her, opening his mouth to protest how shortsighted or selfish that was, but Dawn cut him off and turned to me.
“I wanted to ask you about yesterday,” she said. “You actually went into that shop, didn’t you?”
Her almond-shaped eyes gleamed with curiosity under skillfully applied shadow and liner. She really was a very beautiful woman.
“Yes, I did,” I admitted. “It was horrible. That man was just lying on his face on the floor.”
“Was there blood?”
“Dawn!” protested Keith.
Dawn looked annoyed. “Oh like you don’t want to know. I’m sorry that that poor man is dead. So tragic. Blah, blah. But damn it, it’s interesting. Why shouldn’t I ask?”
I tried not to laugh. I knew I liked Dawn.
“Ask away,” I said. “I don’t know much anyway. But the thing that hit me most was how similar it was to what happened to Millie. Pretty strange coincidence.”
“What do you mean?” ask Keith, but Dawn was nodding.
“Exactly. Two people killed. Makes you think.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Keith protested. “There’s no connection at all between the two … events. One was an American tourist, in Giza, hundreds of miles away. The other was a simple shopkeeper. Completely different,” Keith added stoutly.
“Both stabbed in the back of the neck,” I pointed out. “Neither one of you noticed anything unusual in the market before it happened, did you?”
Keith sputtered. “Look. This is our first vacation together. Whatever is going on, it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
Dawn gave him a look, then turned back to me as if he hadn’t spoken. “We didn’t notice anything, or at least I didn’t. The shopkeepers are so aggressive and in your face, I can’t even see what they’re selling, much less pay attention to anything else going on. You know what it’s like when you go into one of those shops.”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway, not wanting to admit I’d never had the nerve to do more than lower my eyes and rush by, ignoring the calls and offers of the hawkers.
“Oh, you and your conspiracy theories,” said Keith indulgently. “Look, just because someone totally unrelated to our group died someplace we just happened to be, doesn’t mean there is something going on. I still don’t think Millie Owens’s death was anything more than a really sad accident. You read about people breaking their necks all the time in strange ways.”
“But she didn’t break her neck,” Dawn protested. “Alan said she was stabbed.”
“Oh, Alan,” Keith’s voice was laden with scorn. “What does he know about it? I’ll tell you what. Nothing. He just wants to dash around looking important and listening to himself talk.”
“That’s not true, my love. Alan is a very smart man. Very educated.”
“Hmph,” he snorted. “I don’t know why he’s talking to you about it anyway. It’s none of his business. He’s just a busybody. Worse than Millie … God rest her soul,” he added quickly, suddenly aware he’d spoken ill of the dead. “Alan’s been asking questions all over the place, stirring everyone up. I tell you what, I saw Fiona and Flora go into that shop about ten minutes before that French woman started screaming, but I wasn’t going to tell him. He’d just hound them to death, poor senile old things.”
“Do you think they’re senile?” I asked, trying