“My name is Josephine now.” She gave a weary sigh, all pretenses gone. “It’s the name I’ve had the longest. The one I’m used to now.”
“How many names have there been?”
“Four. No, five.” She shook her head. “I don’t even remember anymore. There was a new one every time we moved. I thought Josephine would be the last.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does. What name were you born with? You might as well tell us the truth, because I promise you, we’ll find out eventually.”
Josephine’s head drooped in surrender. “My last name was Sommer,” she said softly.
“And your first name?”
“Nefertari.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
Josephine gave a tired laugh. “My mother never made conventional choices.”
“Wasn’t that the name of some Egyptian queen?”
“Yes. The wife of Ramses the Great. Nefertari, for whom the sun doth shine. ”
“What?”
“It’s something my mother used to say to me. She loved Egypt. All she talked about was going back.”
“And where is your mother now?”
“She’s dead,” Josephine said softly. “It was three years ago, in Mexico. She was hit by a car. When it happened, I was in graduate school in California, so I can’t tell you much more than that…”
Jane pulled over a chair and sat down by the bed. “But you can tell us about San Diego. What happened that night?”
Josephine sat with shoulders slumped. They had her cornered, and she knew it. “It was summertime,” she said. “A warm night. My mother always insisted we close the windows, but that night I left mine open. That’s how he broke into the house.”
“Through your bedroom window?”
“My mother heard a noise, and she came into my room. He attacked her, and she defended herself. She defended me. ” She looked at Jane. “She had no choice.”
“Did you see it happen?”
“I was asleep. The gunshot woke me.”
“Do you remember where your mother was standing when it happened?”
“I didn’t see it. I told you, I was asleep.”
“Then how do you know it was self-defense?”
“He was in our house, in my room. That makes it justified, doesn’t it? When someone breaks into your house, don’t you have a right to shoot him?”
“In the back of the head?”
“He turned! He knocked her down and turned. And she shot him.”
“I thought you didn’t see it.”
“That’s what she told me.”
Jane leaned back in her chair but her gaze remained fixed on the young woman. She let the minutes pass, let the silence have its effect. A silence that emphasized the fact Jane was examining every pore, every twitch in Josephine’s face.
“So now you and your mother have a dead body in your bedroom,” said Jane. “What happened next?”
Josephine took a breath. “My mother took care of everything.”
“Meaning she cleaned up the blood?”
“Yes.”
“And buried the body?”
“Yes.”
“Did she call the police?”
Josephine’s hands tightened into knots. “No,” she whispered.
“And the next morning, you left town.”
“Yes.”
“Now, that’s the part I don’t understand,” said Jane. “It seems to me your mother made a strange choice. You claim she killed that man in self-defense.”
“He broke into our house. He was in my bedroom.”
“Let’s think about that. If a man breaks into your house and attacks you, you have a right to use deadly force and defend yourself. A cop might even give you a pat on the back for it. But your mother didn’t call the police. Instead, she dragged the body out into the backyard and buried it. Cleaned up the blood, packed up her daughter, and left town. Does that make sense to you? Because it sure as hell doesn’t make any sense to me.” Jane leaned in close, an aggressive move meant to invade the young woman’s personal space. “She was your mother. She must have told you why she did it.”
“I was scared. I didn’t ask questions.”
“And she never gave you answers?”
“We ran, that’s all. I know it doesn’t make sense now, but that’s what we did. We left town in a panic. And after you do that, you can’t go to the police. You look guilty just because you ran.”
“You’re right, Josephine. Your mother does look pretty damn guilty. The man she killed was shot in the back of the head. It didn’t look like self-defense to the San Diego police. It looked like a cold-blooded murder.”
“She did it to protect me. ”
“Then why didn’t she call the police? What was she running from?” Jane leaned in even closer, getting right into the woman’s face. “I want the truth, Josephine!”
The breath seemed to whoosh out of Josephine’s lungs. Shoulders sagging, she hung her head in defeat. “Prison,” she whispered. “My mother was running from prison.”
This was what they’d been waiting for. This was the explanation. Jane could see it in the young woman’s posture, could hear it in the conquered voice. Josephine knew the battle was lost, and she was finally handing over the spoils: the truth.
“What crime did she commit?” asked Jane.
“I don’t know the details. She said I was just a baby when it happened.”
“Did she steal something? Kill someone?”
“She wouldn’t talk about it. I didn’t even find out about it until that night in San Diego. When she told me why we couldn’t call the police.”
“And you just packed up and left town with her because she told you to be a good little girl?”
“What would you expect me to do?” Josephine’s head lifted, defiance in her eyes. “She was my mother and I loved her.”
“Yet she told you she committed a crime.”
“Some crimes are justified. Sometimes you have no choice. Whatever she did, she had a reason for it. My mother was a good person.”
“Who was running from the law.”
“Then the law is wrong. ” She stared at Jane, refusing to concede an inch. Refusing to accept that her mother was capable of evil. Could a parent ask for a more loyal child? It might be misguided loyalty, blind loyalty, but there was something to admire here, something that Jane herself would want from her own daughter.
“So your mother dragged you from town to town, from name to name,” said Jane. “And where was your father in all this?”
“My father died in Egypt, before I was born.”
“Egypt?” Jane arched forward, her attention riveted on the young woman. “Tell me more.”
“He was from France. One of the archaeologists at the dig.” Josephine’s lips turned up in a wistful smile. “She said he was brilliant and funny. And most of all, kind. That’s what she liked most about him, his kindness. They planned to get married, but there was an awful accident. A fire.” She swallowed. “Gemma was burned as well.”
“Gemma Hamerton was with her in Egypt?”
“Yes.” At the mention of Gemma, Josephine blinked away a sudden flash of tears. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? My fault she’s dead.”
Jane looked at Frost, who appeared just as startled by this information as she was. Though he had been silent so far through the interview, now he could not resist asking a question.
“This excavation you mentioned, where your parents met. Where was it in Egypt?”
“Near Siwa Oasis. It’s in the western desert.”
“What were they looking for?”
Josephine shrugged. “They never found it.”
“It?”
“The lost army of Cambyses.”
In the silence that followed, Jane could almost hear the puzzle pieces click into place. Egypt. Cambyses. Bradley Rose. She turned to Frost. “Show her his photo.”
Frost pulled the snapshot from the file folder that he’d brought into the room and handed it to Josephine. It was the image that Professor Quigley had lent them, the photo taken at Chaco Canyon of a young Bradley staring at the camera lens, his eyes pale as a wolf’s.