Maria Hudgins - Lacy Glass 01 - Scorpion House Read Online Free

Muslim. Make it tomato juice.” He turned to Lacy and raised an eyebrow.
    “Water, please. Why the secrecy?” Lacy nudged Friedman back to the subject.
    “He’ll tell you about it himself when he’s ready. For now, he doesn’t want certain people to know.” Friedman pushed himself up with an elbow against the back of his seat and peered forward. “Susan. He mainly doesn’t want Susan to know.”
    Lacy figured Friedman would explain that and, when he didn’t, tried another tack. “Dr. Lanier used to be head of our biology department, didn’t he?”
    “Right. He left five years ago and I took his place. I hired you the next fall, right? Yes. So he was gone by the time you came.”
    Friedman had served as department head for two years until a heart attack forced him to step down and take lighter teaching duties. Lacy thought back to that time five years ago when Friedman had recruited her from her California school, and she had moved to the East Coast.
    “There was some sort of scandal.”
    “A tragedy.” Friedman took Lacy’s water from the flight attendant and passed it over, but splashed a bit of his own tomato juice across the seat back in front of him and onto the middle-aged woman’s blue slacks. The woman shot him an evil look and took off for the bathroom. “Horace’s wife was murdered. Strychnine.” His chin jerked backward on that last word. “The case was never solved. That was the problem. They had no suspects, really. It happened up in the mountains. They had a summer place west of Harrisonburg.
    “With no suspects, suspicion naturally falls on the husband, although Horace was in Charlottesville at the time of the murder. Their son, Marcus, also got the third degree from the police but he had a pretty good alibi as well.”
    “Then what?”
    The woman returned to her aisle seat, still blotting a large wet spot above her right knee with a tissue. Friedman muttered apologies and got nothing but a glare in reply.
    “That was it. No other suspects, no arrests, but a lot of speculation.” Friedman drew in a breath. “The gossip got worse and worse, and finally Horace said, ‘Screw this.’ He resigned and moved to Egypt.”
    “Why Egypt?”
    “Because he’s interested in the herbology and medical knowledge of the ancient Egyptians and because he sees the Nile ecosystem undergoing changes that threaten to wipe out many of the species the ancients used.”
    “And he just happens to be living at the same place we’ll be staying?” Lacy sipped her water. “Or is he the one who invited us?”
    “Neither, actually. Roxanne Breen is an Egyptologist from England and she’s in charge of the expedition house. She and Susan have worked together before. It’s Roxanne who invited Horace and now she’s making room for us.”
    Lacy made a pre-dinner trip to the bathroom and returned to her seat by the other aisle, which took her past the Clarks. Graham, tall and lanky with curly hair the color of maple syrup and periwinkle blue eyes, had the brighter plumage of the pair. His wife, Shelley, reminded Lacy of a tall version of Susan Donohue. Large brown eyes, oval face, and a body that was all knobs and angles. They had no children. Both had taught at Wythe since before their marriage and both had grown up in the local area. Graham, much to his chagrin, had made the superlatives page in a fall issue of the Wythe University student newspaper as “Sexiest Science Geek.”
    “Have you heard about our equipment? Has it been delivered yet?” Lacy asked Graham, who was plugged into the armrest and watching the overhead TV.
    Graham pulled his ear buds out. “Haven’t heard a thing. We turned in the paperwork in July, but Susan says things in Egypt are on
Inshallah
time.”
    “Meaning whenever … ‘God willing’ “ Shelley added. “It’s one of the Arabic phrases you need to get around in Egypt.”
    Even more than Susan Donohue, Graham had been the prime mover of this project. The original