by Sue Star
But Fededa had known the dead man, who’d had one of the letters. Maybe the dead man and Fededa were neighbors in Ulus.
Puzzled, Anna collected her purse and headed upstairs to change clothes. She needed to find a hiding place for Rainer’s medallion while Priscilla remained absorbed in her healing play. She continued past the landing to the attic bedroom that Mitzi had assigned her. Fresh clothes would help restore a sense of normalcy in a world that had turned upside down, she thought. She peeled out of her cotton dress with the gaily flowered print, now sweaty and dusty.
Then she pulled the medallion from her purse and glanced around the room for a hiding place. A drawer of her writing desk, perhaps? Too bad it didn’t lock. There was no place really secure here, and so she decided on her lingerie drawer.
She slid it open and reached inside to lift up one corner of her silken stack. Then stopped short. She was in the habit of keeping her undergarments folded in quarters and layered according to color, but now she noticed the rumpled disarray.
Someone had been in her room while she and Priscilla were out this afternoon, dodging bullets.
Someone had touched her intimate apparel. Picked up her garments, handled them, moved them aside.
Chapter Eleven
Meryem led the eşek clip-clopping along the narrow street toward home. They snaked up the hill of Ulus to the two-room apartment she shared with her mother, aunt, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and two nieces. As she passed the butcher’s shop, she saw the butcher standing outside, leaning against the chipped plaster of his doorless doorway. He could relax at the end of the day with the rush of customers gone.
Not Meryem. Coming home without Umit, she had earned no lira today, not even a single kuruş. She had always thought the copper coin with a hole in it was worth next to nothing, but now she realized how wrong she’d been. A purse full of the coins could at least buy the family’s supper from the butcher. His eyes narrowed as she approached, as if he could smell the hunger on her. He tugged on one earlobe, the Turkish gesture that showed his appreciation for her beauty. His cheeks puffed out, sucking on the stub of a skinny cigarette, making its tip glow while he filled his lungs with acrid stink. Blood stained his apron, and fly-covered sheep carcasses hung from ceiling hooks in a row behind him. The way he assessed her through his eyes and the earlobe tug made her skin tickle, as if she were nothing more than a slab of meat, a carrier for flies.
Farther up the hill, a flock of sheep, still alive, bleated. A small car was speeding down the hill toward them. The sheep stumbled along, trying to outrun the car, which worked its way into their wooly midst. Honking all the while, the car finally emerged from the sheep. It sped up, scattering cats and stirring other stragglers like herself to oaths.
The eşek balked as the little car raced by. Meryem couldn’t make out the blue letters blurring across the car’s side, and even if she could, she couldn’t read. Still, she knew enough to recognize the blue message—“Polis.”
The butcher tossed the nubbin of his cigarette at her feet. “Gypsy filth,” he muttered. “Nothing but trouble you bring to the neighborhood.” Then he turned his back on her and headed into his shop.
She hurried her step, in the direction from which the police car had entered the flock of sheep. That’s where her home sat, a crooked, wooden building.
Home, all the same.
Whether or not the roof over her head was crooked, she’d never had a real home before, certainly not for this long. Two years now, since their patron, Ozturk Bey—whose feet she would kiss, even unwashed—had found them in Romania and brought the family here. For whatever reason. She supposed he’d gone to the trouble of stowing them away first by freighter across the Black Sea, then by caravansary across land, to enslave the family.
She did not care.
Life as the great man’s slave would’ve been better than their life of hiding in the Carpathians. Hiding first from the Nazis, then from the Russians. Not everyone had ended up as successful as they. Although, their success had cost the family dearly. Two sisters and a younger brother...gone.
But Ozturk Bey—who could understand what moved such a great man? He’d installed the survivors of Meryem’s family in this apartment, brought them clothes and food, started them with their work shining pots. Then he vanished from their lives. She did not know why. She’d learned not to question kismet when it turned a favorable eye on her.
So, even though the upper level of her home tilted like a drunkard in a downhill direction, it looked as beautiful to her as the pink palace must look to the general. Besides, storks lived here, in a jumble of sticks caught in the crook between the chimney and the tile roof. Their nest was a sign of honor, and it corrected for the slant of the roof, too. Meryem’s family occupied one corner of the upper floor, directly under the stork nest.
Surely, the police car had business other than the affairs of her home. Still, her heart fluttered in her chest as she raced uphill. The eşek didn’t resist her tugs, as it could smell its own bed in the weedy patch behind their building. It knew this meant the end of the workday.
Once she released the animal into the dusty yard, she hauled its harness and baskets of copper pots up the narrow stairway to the apartment at the back. She knew something was wrong as soon as she cleared the top step and saw the door of their apartment standing open. Waves of wailing from within rolled out into the hall.
She knew from that moment. She did not have to see her mother in the arms of comforting women to know what the police visit and Umit’s failed return and the gunman’s sudden appearance behind the lion statues all meant.
She knew. She had always known, although she had not wanted to face it up until now.
She dropped the wicker baskets by the door, ran past the huddle of women, and slapped past the gauzy curtain that served as a door into the sleeping room. To the old chest where they kept the clothes Ozturk Bey had given them. Her scarf slipped from her shoulders as she flung open a drawer and picked through neat folds of worn fabric. The pieces tumbled apart as she clawed through them, digging feverishly among the drawer’s contents, ever closer to its bottom. Then she uncovered something she’d never seen before, a tied-up bundle of paper envelopes so thin she could see through the sheets to slanted handwriting. Bah! It was useless to her, and she cast the bundle aside. Finally her fingers touched the soft hide she’d been searching for. She understood now. Umit’s “quick deal.”
She pulled the small leather pouch from its hiding place of clothes and clutched it to her breast, as if its powers could calm the erratic beat of her heart. Then, with nimble fingers, she tugged at the knots, pulling apart the drawstring. Inside the pouch nestled a few coins, Mustafa’s baby teeth, and a gold ring. But the amulet, that circle of silver with the jewel of power, that joint treasure she and Umit had protected ever since those days of fear in the Carpathians... It was gone.
She cursed her brother. For taking their amulet. For making their treasure into his “quick deal.” For losing their treasure, and for allowing himself to be caught. Most of all, she cursed him for dying.
All might not be lost. She had the gun. And with it, she could get the amulet back. She knew where it was, with the Americans. Except...she did not know the danger that had taken Umit. His danger would await her as well.
* * * * *
Anna tugged on shorts and a blouse, fumbling with the buttons in her haste. The USOM bulletin Cora thought she didn’t have—she did—advised that personnel and dependents could wear shorts only in the privacy of their home. Not out in public. No problem. She had no intentions of going out again today.
She fastened Rainer’s chain round her neck, tucking the Saint Christopher’s medal beneath her collar. Wearing it was the best hiding place she could think of for now.
Her skin prickled with the uneasy feeling that whoever had invaded her bedroom was watching her still. But there was no one in her room. No one in the house except for herself and Priscilla, now that Fededa had go
ne home. The intruder—or the guard that the police had surely stationed by now—couldn’t see her through the windows because leafy trees gave her privacy. She would have to phone the police to report this break-in. If that’s what it was. The house was kept unlocked during the day, with Fededa here. Besides, she didn’t wish to discuss her underwear with Detective Yaziz.
She sniffed the air, wary. She couldn’t smell anyone’s presence. Nothing besides the faint stench of dust, heat, and animals, rolled into one, the scent of Turkey.
A scratching sound rose from the yard, and she rushed to the window. It stood open. Had she left it open? Was this how he’d gotten in? Did she hear him fleeing now?
All she saw outside was the asker next door, digging with his trowel in the parched soil of the general’s garden.
He looked up just then, and she lifted her hand in greeting. He scowled back.
“Did you see anyone climbing through my window a little while ago?” she called out to him with the impossible hope that he understood English.
He grumbled a few words in Turkish and returned to his work, handling his trowel with renewed ferocity. His strength surprised her, considering that his grizzled face suggested he was an older man.
“Thank you, never mind,” she called again, then turned back to her room. Goosebumps ran across her spine at the thought of someone riffling through her underwear. Searching for something?
Rainer’s medallion.
Her fingers went to her throat and tightened round the medal beneath her shirt collar.
What if her intruder had been the killer at Atatürk’s Tomb? Had he come here to finish the job that was interrupted today at the tomb?
Maybe he’d followed her home.
“Priscilla!” Anna called, springing to her feet. She’d left her niece alone.
Anna ran down the half flight of stairs from her attic. Priscilla hadn’t returned to her room on the second floor. Anna clattered down the main staircase to the central room that they used for dining. “Where are you?”
She darted towards the kitchen, where narrow, cement steps led down to a walk-out basement. Mitzi stored boxes of unknown things down there, and Priscilla kept a playhouse for her dolls. “Are you down here?” Anna called, running down the steps. Still, there was no answer.
The Tiny Tears doll lay forgotten on the floor of the playroom.
Anna’s pulse thundered. Where was Priscilla?
Chapter Twelve
Yaziz could’ve asked his driver to drop him off at his apartment near Ulus, but he preferred not to make it easy for the department to know his whereabouts. Bulayir was not a man one should turn his back to.
So, after delivering the news of Umit Alekci’s death to the victim’s mother, Yaziz instructed his driver to return him to headquarters in Yenişehir. It was the end of his shift, but he still had work to do and no family at home to return to.
He could not shake from his mind the stricken look on Umit Alekci’s mother’s face. Yaziz thought his own mother would wear such a look if she were brought similar news, and given his profession and the uncertain times, that possibility seemed more likely each day.
Alone in his office, he removed his tie, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it into his coat pocket along with the clinking beads of his tespih. Ignoring the papers stacked neatly atop his desk, he nodded at the photograph of Atatürk on the wall, then left, locking the door behind him.
He avoided the boulevard and wound through narrow side streets, where he ducked into crowds to make sure he would lose anyone who followed him from headquarters. Not that anyone should. Until he learned the truth behind Bulayir’s preoccupation, he would stay out of the chief’s way as much as possible.
Even with his limp, Yaziz reached the nargile salon in only fifteen minutes, a walk that would’ve taken most Turks almost twice that amount of time. But he was koreli, a man like any other Turk, yet unlike most Turks.
By the time he reached the inconspicuous doorway, a hole in the chipped plaster wall beside a coffee bar, he felt certain he’d shaken the junior officer Bulayir would’ve assigned to tail him.
Who would it be this time? Resnelioğlu? Çinkay?
The sounds of burbling water and soft conversation mingled with the smell of sweet tobacco and floated down the narrow steps, promising to clear the worries of the day from Yaziz’s mind. At least, for now. Coming here was similar to fondling his tespih. Both his worry beads and his addiction to the water pipe were habits that his personal hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, would’ve frowned upon as idle practices typical of Ottoman decadence. But Yaziz, despite his worldly experiences, and despite his Kemalist leanings—although he was openly a member of the Democrat Party—was unable to shake either of these habits.
He paused at the landing to survey the men gathered here. Most of them were on their way home after a day of work and eager to share a bit of gossip and camaraderie. Yaziz, however, was more interested in listening than sharing. His workday never ended.
Low sofas angled this way and that, filled with men of all ages and all levels of wealth and poverty. Yaziz searched for the familiar cascade of snowy white hair that distinguished one old man. If his friend was in town, instead of away at his horse farm, Yaziz knew he would be here at this hour.
Then he spied him. Murat, a long-time family acquaintance and now a retired judge, lazed on one of the cushions beside an open window. He had nothing better to do with his time in town but monitor the lives of his sons and the prospective marriages of his daughters. Yaziz made his way across the room and stood before Murat’s sofa, then waited patiently. The judge had clearly seen him coming, yet he continued to puff on his pipe, whose bowl sat on the thick carpet before him.
Finally, Murat removed his meerschaum mouthpiece. A smoke ring drifted out of his mouth as he offered the back of his hand, which Yaziz kissed to show his respect to his elder. Yaziz sank down to the empty space on the sofa beside Murat, and his movement gave him a glimpse through the window of the sidewalk below.
Erkmen!
Yaziz blinked and looked again. Erkmen, the man out there leaning against a lamppost, was certainly no junior officer. He was Bulayir’s lieutenant, the one who’d tracked down the identity of today’s victim wearing the American’s suit. Erkmen was making no attempt at discretion. His black hair of tangled curls formed a V-shaped mat that made him stand out in any crowd. Perhaps he was meeting someone. Not really tracking Yaziz’s movements to report to the chief.
Murat began the ritual inquiries about the wellness of their families, diverting the detective from the problem outside. That someone as careful as Yaziz had not shaken a tail gave rise to a gnawing sensation of doubt. Perhaps the distraction of the gypsies had clouded his effectiveness.
An attendant appeared beside their sofa just then with a pipe and a tray of tobacco. Yaziz startled, jerking sharply at the interruption.
“Relax, Veli,” said Murat.
Yaziz shrugged in an attempt to regain his composure and selected his usual blend, cultivated on a plantation near Adana. While the attendant fueled the bowl with tobacco and burning coals, Yaziz stole another glance out the window. Erkmen studied his wristwatch.
Yaziz drew in his first drag, then nodded his approval. He would wait until the attendant left before he spoke again, but when the time came, speech escaped him.
Murat coughed, rattling loose phlegm. “There is no need for you to hide behind those movie-star glasses of yours when you are with me, my boy.”
“I’m sorry, efendim.” Yaziz removed the heavy frames with the tinted lenses that he always wore, outside or in. He felt Murat’s curiosity penetrate him, as it usually did when someone—even someone as familiar as Murat—saw him like this, exposed. Yaziz’s one blue eye and one brown eye presented a flaw that compromised his authority.
“That’s better,” Murat said. “Now we are more comfortable, eh Veli?”
“Yes, efendim.”
The comfort Yaziz felt, however, was not f
rom his naked head but from the rich smoke that he drew deep into his lungs. Its warmth spread through his body, and slowly, he felt the tightness in his muscles drain away. The image of the gypsy’s sorrow faded. The nuisance of losing the witness he’d wished for all along—a young veiled woman, the MPs at Anit Kabir had reported to his assistant, Suleyman—no longer mattered. The urgency of Burkhardt’s plot, Miss Riddle’s suspicious behavior, Erkmen’s surveillance, and Bulayir’s preoccupation mellowed. Time slowed, and this became most important, this communion with one’s soul.
“Now, perhaps you will tell me what makes you buck today like one of my proudest stallions?” Murat said.
Yaziz’s right shoulder lifted to his ear and the curve of his mouth turned down, rather than confess the limitations of what he knew. The old man could be tiresome, but he was a friend of his parents, who’d insisted Yaziz renew his acquaintance with the judge when he returned from Korea and settled in Ankara. Now, he found Murat useful with his many contacts in this city Yaziz had learned to love for its rawness and explosive progressivism.
“A gypsy was murdered today, and my boss thinks it’s too unimportant to deserve an investigation.”
“But you disagree?”
“I’m sure it’s more important than Bay Bulayir believes,” Yaziz said, gazing thoughtfully at the window. Or, at least it was more important than Bulayir claimed to believe.
Yaziz couldn’t toss off the gypsy’s murder as the result of a squabble. After visiting the mother, he was certain there was no such conflict, not of the warring nature. The Alekcis were a family on their own, trying to make an honest living.
He didn’t believe that Bulayir really believed his own story of a gypsy squabble. No, Bulayir was trying to sidetrack Yaziz. He wondered what his boss did not want him to find out.
Murat chuckled. “I see that your father has not yet convinced you to give up police work.”
“God willing,” Yaziz said with a shrug, “I will have as long and lucrative a career as you have had.”
