'Eight days.'
'And where were you before that?'
'Up.' The Bedouin pointed to the ceiling.
'North?'
'Yes.'
'How long were you grazing up north?'
'Since the end of Ramadan.'
One lunar month, which jibed precisely with what Afif had told him.
'In all that time have you seen anyone else out here? Especially at night?'
'Only the jeeps with the blue lights. They come all the time. Sometimes an army truck too.'
'No one else?'
'No.'
'What about sounds? Have you heard anything unusual?'
'Nothing at all. Just the sounds of the desert.'
'Which sounds are those?'
Jussef Ibn Umar scratched his chin. 'Rodents, a leaf bending in the breeze. A beetle gnawing at a piece of dung.
His words-the precision of his perceptions-bought back memories. Of bowel-tightening night watches, learning that there was no such thing as silence.
'Night music,' said Daniel.
Khaled looked at him appraisingly, trying to figure if this urban fool was ridiculing him. When he decided the comment had been tendered in earnest, he nodded and said 'Yes, sir. And no false notes have been heard.'
Steinfeld stepped out of the cave, frowning. He removed his gloves, brushed off his trousers, and walked toward Daniel. Several other techs were fingerprinting the Bedouins, taking foot casts and fiber samples from their robes. Afif's men were walking slowly across the immediate vicinity, carrying collecting sacks, eyes locked to the ground.
'Party time,' said Steinfeld, eyeing the nomads. 'The goats smell better than they do.'
'What can you tell me?'
'Not much yet. I've taken distilled water samples, run the ortho-tolidine test, and it's blood all right. The luminol spray's the best for the rest of the cave but I need darkness to see the glow spots clearly. You'll have to cover that sky hole.'
Daniel called over a Border Patrolman, instructed him to throw a tarp over the hole.
'Tight,' Steinfeld called out as the officer departed. 'I
did an ABO right there,' he told Daniel. 'All of it's O, same as both of your victims and forty-three percent of the population, so no big deal there. In terms of the other groupings, I think there was some difference between the two of them on a couple-maybe the haptoglobin, but don't hold me to it. I could be wrong. Anyway, don't get your hopes up. Blood decomposes fast, especially out here in the open. You're unlikely to get anything you can use in court.'
'Forget court,' said Daniel. 'I'd be happy with an identification.'
'Don't even hope for that. The best thing I can do is me the samples back Krthe lab. Maybe something'll still reactive. I've got a guy in there chipping off pieces of iother one scooping-up everything, including the shit, k is weeks old and definitely canine-if it barked you pMn't be surer. If we find something interesting, you'll be llrst to know.'
'What about the cloth?'
'Looks like cotton,' said Steinfeld. 'It might match your
Sber one, but it's very common stuff. In answer to your
Mtcstion, the footprints are fresh-from the sandals of pMnadic friends. A few fingerprints have turned up, probably also theirs.' He looked at his watch. 'Anything else? That blood isn't getting any fresher.'
'No. Thanks for coming so quickly. When can you give me your results?'
Steinfeld snorted. 'Yesterday. That's when you need it, right?'
She went crazy about the cat, screaming and crying and just generally being lame, staggering all over the house, throwing open closets and drawers and tossing stuff onto the floor for the maids to clean up. Going into the kitchen, the cellar, his room-places she hadn't been for years. Sing-crying in that weird shaky opera voice.
'Snow-ball, come-a-here, come-a-here!'
He got a little nervous when she invaded his room and started going through it, even though he knew he'd been careful.
Have you seen my baby? Tell me, damn you!
No mom.
Oh, God! Sob, cry, tear hair.
