After supper, Anna tried to settle down for an evening of reading Senator Kennedy’s Pulitzer-prize-winning book, but her thoughts still distracted her. Then the doorbell rang, sounding like an electric current jolting through the tranquility of the house.
“I’ll get it,” Priscilla said. She jumped up from the dining room table, where she’d laid out a hand of solitaire after dinner was done and the dishes put away.
“Wait.” Anna sprang up from the sofa in the adjoining living room and rushed to stop her niece. Not wanting to alarm Priscilla further, on top of the murder today, she explained her skittishness. “We must see who it is first, before opening the door to just anyone. Especially at night.”
“But it’s not dark yet.”
“Still, we have to be careful.” Through the glass block beside the front door, she recognized the Turkish detective, Yaziz, and his assistant standing on the stoop. Her heart fluttered.
She opened the door a crack. “Why, Detective. Is everything all right?”
“Please forgive us. It is a matter that cannot wait. May we come in?”
She grasped the knob to keep her hand from shaking and pulled the door open wider. “Of course. May I offer you a beverage? We have...let me think...mineral water.”
“Mama gives guests raki,” Priscilla said, “and I know where she keeps it.”
Anna frowned. “I believe that is all gone.” Then she turned to Yaziz. “Shall I make some coffee?”
“Thank you, no. You remember my assistant, Suleyman Bey?” He nodded to the man beside him, the one who’d tried to keep Hayati Orhon from barging into Yaziz’s office. At least Suleyman didn’t wear dark glasses indoors as Yaziz did.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bey,” Anna said, extending her hand.
Yaziz grinned. “No. ‘Bey’ is a term of respect, not his name. Never mind. He doesn’t speak English, anyway.”
“Oh. Well. Come and sit down, won’t you?” She led the way, but the men lingered in the foyer, fumbling with their shoes. She paused beside the phone and turned to Priscilla. “Honey, it’s time for you to get ready for bed.”
“But it’s still light out.”
“Let her stay,” Yaziz called from the foyer. “My questions are for her, too.”
Anna’s breath tightened in her throat. She didn’t want to involve her niece in more police questioning. She wondered if she should phone up Paul Wingate, who’d told her to call anytime during the day or night. Anytime that she needed anything at all, he’d come right over. But she didn’t agree with his assessment of Yaziz as a threat.
“All right,” Anna said once they were seated, “what is so important that it cannot wait until morning?”
The men perched stiffly side by side on the government-issue sofa, sleek and plain as a vanilla wafer, while their stockinged feet twisted into the colorful pile of Mitzi’s Turkish rugs. Yaziz nodded at Suleyman, who then pulled a paper-wrapped bundle from his jacket pocket. It was smaller than the package she’d seen in the closet, before Fededa had snatched it away, and this one was wrapped in tissue paper, not newspaper. Suleyman passed the wadded lump to Anna, and the paper crinkled as it unfolded, revealing a coil of blue beads strung together on a frayed piece of twine. Some of the beads were crushed.
“Do you recognize that?” Yaziz asked.
“No. Should I?”
“They don’t belong to you or to little Miss Burkhardt?”
Priscilla leaned shyly over Anna’s shoulder to look at the beads. They both shook their heads.
“They’re not mine,” Anna said. “I’ve never seen them before. Well, wait a minute... They’re similar to what the taxi driver had dangling from his rear-view mirror. What are they? Worry beads?”
“No, no,” Yaziz said, ticking his tongue. “Blue beads such as these ward off the evil eye. They are often worn by children and by animals. It is tradition. Children and animals are especially vulnerable to evil and must be protected.”
“Since we have no pets, you must think these beads are Priscilla’s?”
“They’re not mine,” Priscilla said, “but I have seen eşeks wear them. Donkeys,” she explained to Anna.
Yaziz leaned forward. “These very beads?”
“Maybe not these ones. They all look alike.”
“And the donkey, where was it?”
“Well, I dunno, they’re all over the place.”
“Think of the donkeys you’ve seen and who they were with.”
Priscilla crooked her finger and tapped her upper lip while she thought. “Well, there’s the milkman’s eşek. And—”
“Just a minute,” Anna said, cutting her off. “What’s the meaning of this?”
Yaziz and Suleyman exchanged more words in Turkish. Finally, Yaziz aimed his gold-tinted lenses at her and smiled. She wished she could see his eyes, to see a hint of his thoughts.
“Forgive me,” he said. “My assistant thinks it’s not necessary to bother you with this matter, but I cannot help myself. When I was a student in your great country, I learned to be—how you say?—thorough. Very thorough. I had to be sure. If the beads aren’t yours, then they belong to someone else who visited the tomb. Now we begin a new search first thing tomorrow morning. Perhaps they belong to the shooter, or even the victim himself.”
“So that’s where you found them? At Atatürk’s Tomb today?” She wondered what other information they were withholding from her. She handed back the bundle and then patted Priscilla’s arm. “Okay, honey, I think they’re done with you. You can scoot off to bed now.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue. Do as I say.”
Priscilla stomped her feet, stuck out her lower lip, then marched out of the room and up the steps, testing each one for durability along the way. “You’re just like the rest. I won’t tell you now.”
“I’ll be up in a little while to tuck you in.” Tell me what? Anna thought. When she heard Priscilla’s bedroom door slam shut, she turned back to Yaziz and lowered her voice. “I believe I may have some information for you. The name of the victim may have been something that sounds like ‘Umit’.”
“His name was Umit Alekci.”
“Oh. So you already know?” How long had he known that, she wondered. “Our maid says that he was a hawker who came through this neighborhood fixing copper pots. Perhaps the donkey with the broken beads was his.”
Yaziz turned to Suleyman and spoke sharply to him. Suleyman pocketed the beads and withdrew a worn notepad and chewed-off pencil. He flipped open the pad and scribbled a note.
Anna continued. “You’ve talked to his family? He had a sister, I’m told.”
“Meryem,” Yaziz said.
“A lovely name. Please extend my deepest condolences to the family the next time you see them. Or, perhaps I could do that myself, if you’ll tell me where I might find them?”
Yaziz smiled, not taking her bait, and flicked his head backwards in the no gesture. “It is not your concern.”
“Oh, but it is, Detective. That man had my letter, and I want to know why.”
“Me too, Miss Riddle. The Burkhardts will tell me, once I find them.”
“Mitzi? What makes you think my sister and brother-in-law would know anything? They’re gone. Umit Alekci had nothing to do with them.”
“He was wearing Henry Burkhardt’s suit. You knew that already, did you not?”
“Only because Mr. Orhon told me. Why did you tell him but not me? Did you really think I could recognize Henry’s suit? Look, are you playing games with me?” She sighed, remembering Paul Wingate’s admonishment. They don’t think the same way we do, he’d said. Okay, she’d try another tactic. “Have you come here tonight to return my letter? That’s it, isn’t it? You said you would once you learned the victim’s name. And now you know it.”
“I regret that I no longer have it. Someone removed it from my office.”
“Someone...? You mean, it was stolen?” Panic rose within her. It was only a letter, for goodness sake. “Someone broke into your office? Do you think it was the murderer? Then you can narrow down your suspects to those who have access to your office.”
“Very good, Miss Riddle. We will recover it. Have no fears.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Aren’t you? Tell me, what’s in the letter that makes someone kill for it?”
“You tell me. It’s only a letter.”
“Is it? Is that all it is?”
“What else could it be? You think it’s some sort of code? Even if it were, the war’s over.”
He shrugged, cocking his head to one side to meet his rising shoulder. “Perhaps for you it is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Yaziz glanced over at his assistant and silently evaluated him. Suleyman didn’t know English. Was Yaziz sure of that?
“War leaves behind troubling times,” Yaziz finally said.
“Peace is not troubling, Mr. Yaziz.”
“At least in war you know who your enemy is.”
“You would find in my letter that I’m not your enemy. What are you doing to locate it?”
“I’ve had to check out a few things first with my sources.”
The buddy at JUSMMAT, she thought. “Such as?”
“There is no record of Lieutenant Rainer Akers in your military.”
“Well, of course not. He signed on with the British.”
“And used an APO address, which is American?”
“He had contacts. It was called ‘Allies,’ Mr. Yaziz. Is there anything else? It’s getting late.”
“I regret to keep you up, but yes, there is one more thing I wish to know. The Burkhardts’ travel plans.”
“I’ve already told you they’re in Nairobi, headed for a safari. They can’t be reached.”
“That is exactly the problem. We can’t locate them. One thing is certain—they are not in Nairobi. They left on a plane for Frankfurt, yes, but there was no connecting flight. You will tell me where I can find them.”
“That’s not true! They wrote out an itinerary for me. Just a minute, and I’ll show you.” Anna ran to the phone stand in the dining room and rummaged through papers until she found the slip that Henry had penned with the names of the places where they planned to stay for the next several weeks. In case of emergency. She ran back to Yaziz, waving the paper. “See? Here it is.” She dropped it in his lap and stood over him, breathing heavily with her outrage.
He scanned the paper, then folded it up and slipped it into his pocket. “We will check out these places, but I am afraid we will find that this list is false.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Alarm pounded through Anna’s veins.
“What I mean, Miss Riddle, is that the Burkhardts have vanished. They were last seen on a plane to Frankfurt. The plane arrived, but there is no record of them anywhere, not in any of the hotels there. Nor leaving Frankfurt on a connecting flight. Not even on a train. They have simply vanished. You must tell me where they are. As guardian of their child, you must know.”
“Noooo...” Anna felt her legs give out, and she sank into the nearest chair. “You must’ve missed something. My sister wouldn’t just disappear. She’s in Nairobi, I tell you. That’s why you can’t find her in Frankfurt.”
“Are you sure you cannot think of anything else that would help us find the Burkhardts? Something that is, perhaps, connected to the activity at the tomb today? Something, perhaps, that you are not telling us?”
Anna’s spine stiffened. Rainer’s medallion burned in her mind. “Now that you mention it, there is something. But it’s another matter. Not about Mitzi and Henry. It’s not related to what happened at the tomb today, either.” She took a deep breath.
“Go on.”
“I didn’t wish to speak about it in front of Priscilla and alarm her unnecessarily. It’s only a feeling, you see. I have no proof. And there’s been no damage.”
“What is it, Miss Riddle?” The gold lenses studied her.
Then the story poured out. She was only reporting her suspicions to gold lenses, after all. She told them about her belief that someone had entered her room, touched her things, and no, she had no proof. There was no damage. Nothing missing.
“May we have a look?” he asked.
“Really, Detective, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Yaziz spoke rapidly to his assistant, then turned back to Anna. “Is there something of interest that someone might have been searching for? Something, perhaps, of your lieutenant’s? Another letter?”
“No, Detective.” Anna tightened her jaw muscles. Her fingers fluttered to her collar, but she’d removed the Saint Christopher’s medal and hidden it safely away in her purse. Now, her purse was upstairs in her room. Still, Yaziz was presenting her with an opportunity to hand over the medallion to the police, as she’d promised her nosy neighbor Cora she would do. It was really none of Cora’s concern, was it? Anyway, the medallion had originally belonged to Aunt Iris, which made it Anna’s now, on account of her inheritance. Aunt Iris had only loaned the medal to Rainer. To keep him safe. As Anna was continuing to do.
“There is nothing of Rainer’s,” she said, feeling heat rise to her face. “But maybe something else of interest. Our maid carried off a package from her broom closet. She was in quite a rush. I’m quite sure it was something she didn’t want me to see.”
Yaziz lifted an eyebrow, instructed his assistant to write a note, then rose. “Thank you, Miss Riddle. If you will be kind enough to show us the closet and your bedroom, then I will speak to the man who is assigned to watch your house. Have no worry. You will sleep safe and sound tonight.”
She wasn’t so sure about that, but she rose, too, and led them to the closet first. They could look if they wanted. They could even keep Henry’s itinerary, since she’d had the foresight to write out a backup copy that she kept in her purse. Anything, to divert their interest from the medal. She had a right to keep a trinket in honor of Rainer’s memory. She had a right to her own privacy.
* * * * *
Meryem shook her hips, and the gauzy fabric she’d tied low around tawny flesh rippled, along with the muscles of her bare belly. Her arms ringed in gold bracelets lifted above her head, and her long, tapered fingers caressed the air, keeping time with the beat of the music that throbbed repetitively in the general’s sitting room. She laughed behind her veil, knowing that her laughter would bring a sparkle to her eyes.
Old, fat men sat on rugs and carefully tracked her movements with their eyes, trying hard not to turn their heads to follow her prances across the room. They wore looks on their faces as if the breath had been squeezed out of them. Except for one of them, the general, who was hard in all of the wrong places.
Meryem laughed again, thinking of the promised lira, and only wished that Umit were sitting downstairs in the kitchen, waiting to escort her safely home. But he wasn’t, and she had to go on without him.
For now, she pushed the worry of Umit from her mind and wiggled closer to the general. She bent over his bald pate, ringed with steel hair like a crown of olive leaves. Her breasts were even with the mole on his face, and her upper body undulated. Bangles shimmied and jingled from the silk cloth that outlined her nipples.
Gasps filled the air. One old man with hair as white and feathery as a stork’s and as long as a horse’s mane turned loose of his glass of raki, spilling drops of its clear liquid. The general’s guests reached for their pockets and rattled coins. Then, groping hands tucked silvery lira pieces and worn bills into the wedges between her body’s curves and the fabric stretched tautly across them. Fingers lingered against her flesh, brushed across her breasts, but she didn’t mind as long as they left behind their tips.
Their breath surrounded her with a taste of licorice, and then the general suddenly shot up from his cushion to his feet. He lifted his chin and puffed out his chest military style. His medals and ribbons, earned while in service to Atatürk, sparkled under the glow of crystal lamps. Bits of brass decorated his uniform as thickly as the bangles on Meryem’s costume. His guests, always aware of their host above all, fell away from Meryem as the general clapped his hands at a servant, dressed in a white coat and waiting patiently by the phonograph. The servant whirled around faster than a dervish, and the music came to a scratching halt.
“That’s enough for tonight,” the general said. His stern gaze swept down his hawk nose at his guests. “It is time for the nargiles, efendi.”
The men pulled handkerchiefs from their pockets and mopped their brows as the servant bent low over a table of equipment to spin dials and adjust this and that. Now would come the part of the evening where Meryem entered new territory. Without Umit, she would have to create her own rules.
She lingered as a new band of servants entered the room with hookahs and began setting them up. A filthy habit, she thought, but a necessary one for men who needed a little help loosening up their thought process.
Men! Let them think they could control anything!
Just then, the servant in charge of the phonograph pounced on her, grabbing her by the arm. He pushed her to the door of the grand hall, and his grip pinched her in a familiar way. She scowled up at him in protest, then sucked in her breath, as she recognized his hairy face and the firm clamp of his fingers on her arm. The dull glaze of his all-knowing eyes. The tight coils of his black hair, thick as a lamb’s.
But he was no lamb. He was the secret police, the same one who’d caught her earlier that day. Outside the general’s gate. What was he doing here inside, dressed as a servant? Then she remembered the coins he’d thrown down at the feet of the asker, the old guard who patrolled the grounds. And the cloth bundle. Bribes? That’s how he’d entered the general’s house tonight.
This was information Meryem could use.
The policeman in disguise shoved her through the doorway into the hall. He slammed the door of the meeting room behind them, shutting the two of them alone together under the crystal chandelier of the grand hall. “You waste your time spying here,” he said. Irritation rolled off his forehead in the form of sweat beads.
“What business do they discuss while they smoke those silly water pipes?” she asked.
He jerked his head back and clicked his tongue, giving a sharp, smacking sound that meant “no” in the highest degree of negativity. The general’s business, and his business with the general, were none of her business. All the same, it could be profitable for her as well as for the secret police.
“Get out,” he said, pointing to a narrow staircase at the back of the mansion. Then he waited, trying not to eye her as she plucked bills from the tucks of her scarves and shook out coins that rattled to the marble floor.
She felt his eyes ogle her as she gathered up her money and stuffed it into the pouch she kept hidden inside her underwear. Her tongue ticked against the roof of her mouth to express her disapproval, and she whirled away in a flutter of scarves to clatter down the steps.
Meryem’s step slowed as she descended the stairs. The secret police had let her go too easily. He’d promised her only that very afternoon that he was not done with her. And now he dismissed her, just like that.
Why did he no longer need her?
She puzzled over this, for surely it meant something she could turn to her profit. Deep in thought at the bottom of the stairs, she reached up to the wooden peg by the outside door where she’d left her tsharchaf.
The wrap was gone.
Her arm fell to her side, and she glanced between the empty peg and the door. A glass panel showed a square of deep night from the gardens behind the general’s palace. She couldn’t leave the house without her tsharchaf. The black robe covered her from her head to her toes, hiding her near nakedness and allowing her to slip across the city with minimum stir.
Meryem, the family’s only hope now without Umit, had an idea.
She turned a corner and tiptoed down a narrow hall that ran alongside the stairs. At the end of the hall shone a light bulb hanging loose from the ceiling of the kitchen.
Spread across the wooden table in the center of the room was a puddle of black cotton—her tsharchaf. The asker, a grizzle-whiskered old man, sat there, pawing through the folds. Years beyond his official service, he still wore the undecorated khaki uniform of an ordinary Turkish soldier, not that any soldier was ever ordinary. He looked up from his work and his glass of raki as she entered the room, and his eyes settled slowly from their swimming circles into a tight focus on her.
“Where is it?” he said, his voice a snarling slur.
She snatched her garment out from under his grasping clutches and wrapped it around her like a cloak. “We had a deal,” she said, then marched around the table to where he sat. She rubbed her fingers together under his nose and wished Umit were here. He had handled the business end of their partnership.
The old soldier jerked his head back. “You already got your money. You lied about the weapon.”
You old fool! “I softened the general for you, as I said I would.”
“The general does not bargain with gypsy trash.”
“You promised me lira.”
“You promised to dance tomorrow night, too. That’s when you’ll get your money. And do not come back empty-handed.”