They took a look anyway.
Blank walls and empty shelves. A few cheap art prints and a tchotchke or two that didn’t seem worth carting home.
“What’s that?”
Harper pointed to an odd Egyptian statuette on the dresser. It had the body of a man, but the head of a bird with a pointy, curved beak.
“That’s Anti,” Jerri said. “The Falcon God. I guess he ferried the pharaohs to the afterlife or something. They left it though. Steph was obsessed with it. Anti, Ivo, Razi. She was obsessed with a lot of things.”
Hauck looked at Harper, who shook her head in futility. But she looked as though there was something else on her mind. She seemed to be holding something she had found, and he noticed her slip it into her pocket.
When they were back in the car and on their way to their next destination, the museum, he asked, “What did you think of the two roomies?”
He expected to hear Nabila’s opinion, and she’d opened her mouth to respond, when Harper cut her off.
“One of them was lying.”
“How do you figure?” He was curious about her reasoning.
“Either Jerri was telling the truth and Stephanie was dressed for work, hard work. Or Tina was telling the truth and Stephanie was dressed for a date.”
“It has to be an either/or?” he said.
“Both things can’t be true. Especially since they don’t like each other.” Harper was observant, he’d give her that. Of course, if she was a con woman that would be part of the tricks of her trade. “Where were they the night she went missing?”
Nabila said, “Jerri Sanderson said she was out of town until late the next day, and we partially confirmed that with her employer. She was with him until eight at night, and she was there at nine the next morning. In between, who knows? Tina Peek said she was partying until two in the morning, and Stephanie was not in the apartment when she came home.”
“They don’t like each other, it’s true,” Nabila went on.
And Hauck noticed that something about the interview, or about the two women, had made Nabila thoughtful, as well.
“By the way, Nabila,” he said. “Are either of the girls Jewish? Did they mention connections of Stephanie’s through her synagogue?”
Nabila flushed. “The last synagogue in Alexandria is closed. There is nowhere she could have gone.”
So much for Alexandria’s record of tolerance, Hauck thought, taken aback by the way Nabila had misled him. Had it been simple loyalty to her city that had caused her to paint Alexandria in more flattering colors? Or did the police inspector know something about the case that she hadn’t divulged? For the first time, he looked at Nabila Honsi with a feeling of doubt.
The policewoman concentrated solely on her driving, the crowded streets noisy with cars and pedestrians of all sorts. They were close to the harbor again when Nabila pointed to a white stone building with a green lawn in front.
“That’s the museum,” she said. “I’m going to have to let you out and find a place to park. Obviously, that’s quite difficult here.”
She’d lost the pleasant tone that had made her sound so agreeable, and Hauck realized that quite possibly that had been a façade. This beautiful inspector had layers he hadn’t anticipated.
Like the city they were in.
As they scrambled out of the car and began to walk up the driveway, Hauck saw that Harper was watching after Nabila thoughtfully. Tolliver was looking pale and was sweating.
“What’s wrong?” Harper asked her brother, and Hauck saw she was alarmed, maybe more alarmed than the situation warranted.
“I don’t know if it’s jet lag or the salad I had,” Tolliver said. “I feel crappy.”
“Do you want to get a cab back to the hotel?” Harper said. “Get in bed?”
“I better do that, or I’m going to be embarrassing to have along,” Tolliver said, doing his best to sound jaunty.
Hauck undertook getting the cab, which was awkward since he didn’t speak much of the language. But the driver understood “Four Seasons,” and Hauck helped Tolliver into the backseat, at the last moment realizing the man needed local currency. He stuffed some in his hand.
“Watch out for her,” Tolliver muttered. Then he reached into his pocket and handed Hauck a handful of Werther’s Caramels and peppermints. “If she has a spell, give her one of these right away.”
Hauck pocketed the candy and rejoined Harper, who was looking distraught.
“He doesn’t have any money, he can’t pay,” she said anxiously.
“I took care of that. And I have candy in case you need it?”
She looked relieved. “He always watches out for me. I have something to give you.”
But just then Nabila joined them and he noticed the subject was dropped. They all headed to the office of Dr. Omar Razi.
“I thought it would be bigger,” Harper whispered to Hauck, as they crowded into Dr. Razi’s office.
It wasn’t a large space, but every inch of it was crammed with machinery, and papers and drawings. The walls were lined with open glass shelves crowded with interesting objects. Pots, spearheads, even pieces of bone. He wondered if Harper was vibrating like a tuning fork.
“This is not a huge museum, like your Smithsonian,” Dr. Razi said, in crisp English.
Perhaps in his early or midthirties, the man seemed young for his position. He had a thick head of hair and a trimmed mustache and was dressed in a white linen shirt and khaki slacks. Handsome man, by most standards. And to overhear Harper’s remark, the guy must be sharp-eared.
“But we are serious about discovering and excavating sites from the past that have remained undiscovered,” Dr. Razi added, as he seated himself behind his cluttered desk. The rest of them chose straight-backed chairs that were none too clean.
“And that’s what Ms. Winters was working on?” Hauck asked.
“More or less. She was learning the mechanics and analysis of satellite cartography under my tutelage.”
“I understand that it can reveal buried sites that aren’t apparent to the naked eye,” Hauck said.
And Dr. Razi was off and running. Hauck didn’t completely comprehend what the doctor was telling him, but he understood that satellite imaging had enabled archaeologists to see features of the landscape from above, features that had been buried hundreds or thousands of years not visible from the ground. There were specific programs to aid archaeologists in mapping these ancient sites and locating buried cities no one had suspected were there.
“I understand there’s another circle close to Stonehenge that is much larger,” Harper said, completely out of the blue.
“That’s right,” Dr. Razi said, his face lighting up at having discovered a kindred soul.
He showed every sign of launching into another monologue, but Hauck stopped him before he could hit his stride. “Please tell us about Stephanie.”
Razi’s face grew somber. “Of course. That’s why you are here, and I want to help in any way I can. She was an intelligent young woman, and her death is a great loss. To the program. To us all.”
“You’re sure she’s dead?” Harper said.
They all stared at her, but she showed no signs of being self-conscious.
“Sadly, what other conclusion is there?” Razi said. “Stephanie has been gone so long and has had no contact with her family. She was always on the cell phone to them. I had to speak to her about it more than once. Work hours, you know. I can’t waste the museum’s money. History must go on.”
“So she was slacking off?” Hauck said.