A Steal of a Deal (17 page)

Sound familiar? Remember Farooq?

That splash you just heard was the key to my jail cell plunking down into a deep, deep ocean. I think I’m sunk.

1000

Back on the mules again, after we’ve said our hurried goodbyes to the Dunns, the Musgroves, and the little ones at the orphanage, my mind turns over and over the scraps of all that’s happened. What else can I do? I’m stuck in the mountains of a strange country not known for its legal fairness, and with no rights for the common woman. The bunch of official-type lunatics escorting us back to Srinagar thinks I had something to do with the murder of our native guide. Oh, and the houseboy too.

You know I had nothing to do with either death.

I may not know what happened, but I can connect some dots. “Did anybody else notice that Xheng Xhi’s murder sounds a lot like Farooq’s?”

For the span of about ten seconds, all I hear is our beasts plod down the mountain we climbed only days before. Then Miss Mona sighs loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Andie, dear,” she says. “I don’t think it’s wise to talk about this right now.” She bobs her head toward the goons and soldiers. “You might be misunderstood.”

The six men have arranged themselves between us, and that makes it tough to talk, but hey! I’m going nuts here. I can’t just ride a mule to my funeral. Know what I mean?

“On TV,” Aunt Weeby says, “lawyers always say suspects should keep their mouths shut. That way you can’t say anything the cops can use against you. You’d best not talk so much, sugarplum.”

Aunt Weeby’s telling me not to blab. How’s that for irony?

I sigh. No one has to tell me my situation’s grim, but it’s not
that
grim. I did nothing wrong. I will not take the blame for those two dead Kashmiri.

I sit up tall on the back of my beast. “What do you think they’re going to do? Shoot me because I ask a question? Right here, right now? I don’t think so.”

“Andie!” Aunt Weeby frowns. “You don’t listen so good, do you?”

I ignore Max’s burst of laughter.

So does Aunt Weeby. She dishes out more advice. “Don’t you go giving ’em any a’ those ideas. I’m sure they can come up with plenty a’ their own. Why, I’m sure they know all about tortures, and all that kinda thing.”

Fear rumbles around my stomach, but I refuse to let it do its thing. God is greater than any Kashmiri threat. “Don’t even go there. You know I didn’t do a thing to Xheng Xhi. I’m going back home to Louisville. It might take some fast talking from embassy types, but that’s what they get paid to do.”

“Of course, we know you didn’t hurt that man,” Miss Mona says. “But folks here in Kashmir don’t know you like we do.

Even your fans know you better than that. But dear Trevor here says it’s best not to say anything until we’ve met with the folks at the embassy. They’ll know how to deal with the authorities. Besides, I’m sure someone there will speak their language so they don’t misunderstand what’s what.”

Frustration is fast becoming my permanent state of residence. “Doesn’t anybody else think it’s weird that both these guys were killed while they were around us? Don’t you think something’s going on? Don’t y’all want to know what it’s all about?”

“I just want to go home,” Allison says. “And I want to stay there. Don’t ever ask me to come on another one of your crazy trips, Andie, you hear? I won’t go.”

“Oh, so it’s
my
crazy trip.” I sniff. “Mine was a missionary trip to help earthquake victims. Miss Mona’s the one who hijacked it into something else, something sapphire-related, something crazy.”

“Umm . . . Andie?” Glory says. “I don’t want to upset anyone, but I just looked back. Do you still have your mirror? You might want to use it.”

“Forget the mirror.” I glance over my shoulder and almost fall from the mule. “Oh, swell. Remember the folks Aunt Weeby called my native fans out by the mines? The ones with the handy-dandy weaponry? Well, they’re with us again.”

“You don’t think they plan to follow us all the way down to the city, do you?” Allison asks.

A tsunami of exhaustion hits me. “Who knows? Who cares?

You guys don’t want to help me figure this out, so I don’t want to do all the thinking anymore. I don’t even want to talk— and don’t say anything smart about that, Max. I just want to crawl into bed, pray, and sleep until I can’t sleep anymore, and then pray some more. But I don’t think I’m going to get what I want anytime soon.”

No one says a word. I suspect they think a wholesale meltdown’s around the corner. And it might be. Do you blame me?

But a meltdown won’t change much. Two men are dead. Our party’s right in the thick of the investigation, even though we had nothing to do with the killings.

I blink away sudden tears. Once I can see again, I notice a familiar cluster of homes up ahead. We stayed in this tiny village on our way to Soomjam. I might catch some z’s sooner than I thought.

“Look!” Glory says, beating me to the punch. “We’re almost to our overnight location.”

“Progress,” I murmur with only a touch of sarcasm in my voice. “Not enough, though. I have to admit, I’m with Allison. As much as I wanted to help at the orphanage, I want to go home even more.”

“Now you’re making sense,” Max says.

You hear those flapping sounds overhead? Yep. It must be those flying pigs again. No dissent between Mr. Magnificent and Andi-ana Jones.

But I’m too drained to think about it.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be some time before I can catch that nap I want so much. We’re not the only tourists in this tiny town, this stop at the intersection of various rocky, craggy trails through the Himalayas.

Remember Delia, her mother, and grandmother? Oh yeah. Their party’s here too. Turns out, this is where they stopped on the way up and now back from their encounter with the guru. And guess what? That little gathering took place just west of Soomjam.

Maybe I need sleep a whole lot more than even I think. Either that, or I’m getting a wee bit paranoid. Weren’t these folks in Srinagar at the same time we were there? Now they’ve spent a couple of days not so far from—you got it—where we were.

See the pattern?

Oh, okay. I can’t see Delia, her mother, or her diamond-demented grandmother killing anyone. The two men with them, Delia’s dad and granddad, probably, don’t look any more threatening than the women do. But, then again, I can’t see me killing anyone either.

And I’m the authorities’ prime suspect right about now. Go figure.

But there’s still only one reality. There are two dead bodies; I don’t think Robert killed Farooq, and I know he couldn’t have killed Xheng Xhi—he’s been in jail all this time.

Lord? Can you give me a clue here? Or am I really as clueless—
in every way—as Glory says? What have I missed?

Something’s up; I don’t believe in coincidence. I just have to figure out what’s what. My life might depend on it.

Those soldiers? They’re not playing cops and robbers with their guns.

“That old fool was full of hooey!” Delia’s grandfather, Mr. Russell, says at dinner. “And charges too much to dish it out.”

“But Grandpa! Didn’t you find your inner gem?”

My ears perk up. Dinner table talk about some fake religious leader out to separate people from their cash doesn’t snag my attention. But gems? Oh yeah.

“What do you mean, Delia?” I ask. “What’s that about an inner gem?”

Too late to do anything about it, her smug smile reminds me I’m dealing with a teen. She takes a deep, dramatic breath and, once she’s sure she holds center stage, gives me her goofy answer.

“Swami Devamundi’s Eternal Growth gatherings teach you to, like, know yourself, how you’re a gem deep inside. You know?”

I shake my head.

She scoffs—she’s a teen, all right.

“You should come with us to the next gathering, Andie. You’d, like, learn so much from the swami. He’s too cool. He’ll teach you to find that gem inside plus the good Karma, and then you, like, have the key to keep growing. The best part is, you can keep coming back to more gatherings and learn to grow even more. After a bunch of gatherings, you become a realized soul, and you can get to Nirvana. Isn’t that totally awesome?”

No.
That kind of semi-spiritual gobbledygook gives me the creeps. But the gem part . . . ? “I don’t get the gem deal. What does a gem have to do with the whole Nirvana thing?”

Max smothers—sorta—a laugh. I kick him under the table.

He grunts but keeps on eating, a grin working its way back onto his face.

“All I know,” Mr. Russell says, “is that I agreed to foot the bill for this trip because I wanted to see the Himalayas. I’m not about to pay that phony another penny to hear him tell everyone to meditate on the gem in their soul. Who’s got a ruby, emerald, or sapphire in their soul? Who knows what anyone has in their soul?”

The glare Mrs. Russell gives her husband would strip the nacre off your best Tahitian pearl. “Thanks to the swami, some of us do know. And since we’re in Kashmir, I’d like to think of my inner gem as a sapphire.”

Ding, ding, ding, ding!
“Sapphire, huh?”

“Me too,” Delia says. “Me too.”

I wonder if anybody else around the table feels like the crowd around the emperor when he sported his new duds.

“I think sapphire blue’s the perfect color for our souls,” Delia adds. “So I want a whole new wardrobe. The swami says we should show others our inner gem. Daddy’s cool with buying me some new clothes, not the whole wardrobe, but he won’t buy me a sapphire ring.”

Does this sound creepier to you by the second? It might to Delia’s daddy too, since he shakes his head and takes another helping of red
roganjosh
, a spicy mutton curry.

It also seems to sound funny to Max, who’s trying—without much luck—to keep his laughter down at the mild-chuckle level.

All righty, then.
I might as well do my gem-show host thing, and maybe that’ll bring the silly swami-talk to a close. “I guess it’s not so strange to like to wear clothes in a color that’s special to you. And lots of people want a sapphire ring. We can sell you a nice one from the S.T.U.D. collection. Why don’t you watch my show once I’m back in Kentucky?”

“See?” Delia’s mother tells her husband. “It’s not so strange.” She turns to me—oh, joy. “Tell me, Andrea, did you pick up much Kashmir sapphire while you visited the mines?”

Hmm . . . “How’d you know we visited the mines?”

At her side, Aunt Weeby tsk-tsks. “Why, sugarplum, we told the Russells where we’d been when we first met up with them this afternoon. Don’t you remember?”

Since visions of Kashmiri jails have been dancing in my head, yeah, okay. I might have forgotten a thing or two. Especially when it comes to loony Americans looking for faith in all the wrong places.

“So did you?” Delia’s mother prods, her eyes glued to the S.T.U.D.’s stud.

“No, ma’am,” Max answers. “We didn’t come to Kashmir on a buying trip. We came to help at an orphanage that just happens to be located near the old, played-out sapphire mines. Last I checked, the S.T.U.D. has no Kashmir sapphire. But we might have some nice Burmese stones left.”

“Too bad,” she says. “I’d really like a Kashmiri stone. Like my daughter said, our dear swami encourages his followers to reflect their inner selves—their inner gem—in what they wear. My mother, Delia, and I have agreed that in honor of this wonderful land, we’d like to reflect the pretty blue of its sapphires. Could you at least tell me where I can buy one?”

I’d better take over the gemological conversation. Who knows what Mr. Magnificent might come up with? “It’s virtually impossible to buy Kashmir sapphire these days,” I say. “The mines haven’t been seriously worked in almost seventy years.”

She props her elbows on the table, glances toward me, but then beams back at Max. Good grief!

Then she says, “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any Kashmir sapphires out there somewhere, does it?”

I stare, and that forces her to pay attention to what I say. “That’s right. Private collectors and museums own Kashmiri stones. The largest collection is supposed to be owned by the local government. I doubt the private owners are willing to part with their gems, but I’ve heard rumors that the government is thinking of selling some of their stash. So far, though, no stones have come on the market.”

She looks at the two men in her party, seated side by side, more than likely for strength and solidarity. “I’m sure,” she says, her voice thoughtful and calculating, “they’d sell if the price was right.”

I laugh. “Okay, fine. Go for it. The latest auction at Christie’s brought about one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars per carat for a twenty-two-and-a-half-carat, hundred-plus-year-old Kashmir sapphire. Do the math. You’ll need three million sixty-some thousand bucks for your own stone of that kind.”

Stunned silence follows my words.

Then Grandpa Russell bursts into loud guffaws. “I owe you one, young lady. That’s so crazy even these three can’t imagine that kind of dough. That’ll get ’em off my back—at least for the rings.”

“But Mo-om!” Delia whines. “Don’t you remember what the swami said? He said there are new mines and new, less expensive stones here in Kashmir—”