Free Maria Hudgins - Lacy Glass 02 - The Man on the Istanbul Train by Maria Hudgins

to seat everyone. Around the walls inside, a fringe of recent finds rested on the ground and on folding tables. Lacy wandered over to a table covered with potsherds someone had grouped into five piles. She picked up a couple showing traces of paint and found grey, black, and brown. Some showed reddish brown, but she couldn’t identify the pigment visually since most of the samples appeared to have been fired. Something felt odd about the grouping, but Lacy couldn’t figure out what it was.
    Süleyman had set up a buffet table along one side of the tent with hot casseroles, baked vegetables, and fruits. Lacy filled a plate and took a seat at the table where Paul and Bob Mueller were already sitting, nothing left on their plates but apple cores and orange peels. Henry Jones joined them.
    “Why are you still here?” Paul asked. “I thought you’d left for the airport.”
    “Change of plans.” Henry slapped a knife full of butter across his flatbread. “There’s another man from the Sebring Foundation already in Ankara. I didn’t know that. He was there to study the artifacts in the museum but the office decided to let him go home with the body and keep me here. We’ve got some loose ends they want me to tie up.” The loose ends, he told them, had mostly to do with funds Max had wired to a Turkish bank and a couple of items Max had purchased but not yet picked up.
    Lacy wondered if Max’s purchases involved any more rugs. The man was a big spender because handmade silk rugs did not come cheap. But then he was rich, wasn’t he? Rich enough to have his own foundation to fund things like this dig. Who would inherit all his money? Max’s family consisted only of a comatose father and a disabled wife.
    Paul stood up. “Sorry I have to leave, but tonight’s my night to lecture. Bob and I take turns. Lacy, I’ll see you when I finish.” With that, he threaded his way through the tables to one side of the tent. There was a general shuffling as workers turned their chairs around to face him.
    “Paul’s a good speaker,” Henry whispered in her ear. Twisting his mouth to one side, he added, “The kids think Bob’s boring. They love it on nights when it’s Paul’s turn.”
    Lacy glanced across the table to Bob, hoping he hadn’t overheard that. He’d turned his chair to face away from them. He couldn’t have heard.
    Paul raised an arm for attention. “I’d like to introduce a friend of mine, Lacy Glass. We worked in Egypt together and I asked her here to look at our painted pottery. Lacy is the world’s foremost expert on pigments and dyes. I lured her away from the work she was doing in Istanbul on carpets, tiles and … whatever. Lacy? Stand up, please.”
    Feeling warm blood rising to her face, Lacy stood.
    Paul waved her up. “Come here, Lacy. I want to show them something.”
    What the hell? Not, “I want to show you something,” but “I want to show them something.”
    Paul took her hand. “Lacy can do the weirdest things with her shoulders. She’s double jointed. Show them, Lacy.”
    “What?” How dare he? She wasn’t a circus freak. She had no time to formulate the response Paul deserved, briefly considered a knee to his privates, but said, “I only perform for money. Big money.” The audience laughed.
    “How much?” Paul got a funny look on his face as if he knew he’d said the wrong thing. When Lacy didn’t answer, he squeezed her shoulder and added, “Nevermind. Maybe later.”
    The workers roared. They took it to mean she would perform her contortions for Paul alone—later, in private. She slunk back to her seat, praying she wouldn’t trip over a chair on the way. Her cheeks burned. Where was Sierra? She glanced over her shoulder. Aha. There she was. Sierra sat at a table near the spot from which Paul was speaking. Her lips were clamped shut so tightly they had vanished altogether.
    Henry tried to talk to her when she returned to her seat, but couldn’t do so without disturbing