Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 11/01/12 (7 page)

We arrived at what I imagined would be the highlight of the day, on a par with
the view at Mount Nemrut. If there's anything in the world I love more than
exploring sites, it's going behind the scenes in a museum. Seeing things in
their cases can be a treat, but getting to see them up close, with no Plexiglas
separating you, is an extraordinary event.

We would be coming back to the museum tomorrow for a formal tour of the public
collections, but Lale had studied with Dr. Saatchi and wanted to show off the
prizes of the museum to us.

"Hey, Em. Calm down," Brian said. "You look like you gotta pee."

I realized I was bouncing around a little, and tried to chill out. My good mood
lessened when I saw Lale take Dr. Saatchi aside and hand him the small object
Rose had taken. He frowned and asked her several questions. He glanced at Rose,
and then, after Lale said something else, glanced at me. I nodded. He continued
with Lale in Turkish.

With a gesture that said the matter was over, he pocketed the clay disc. I was
surprised when Lale led him over to me.

"Dr. Fielding, I am pleased to meet you. I used your paper on trade goods on
early American sites to do something similar with trading centers in Asia
Minor."

A little shocked, I shook his hand. "I'm delighted it was useful to you."

"Well, we have so many cultures, so much history in Turkey, we are happy to use
whatever tools best give us a clear picture of the past."

Brian nudged me; I raised one eyebrow and gave him a mock-serious frown. Yes, I
was totally awesome; he shouldn't ruin it by acting like this didn't happen all
the time. This was one situation where I didn't mind bringing my profession into
my vacation.

Lale explained that Dr. Saatchi would be showing us important artifacts from
sites from all over Turkey, including finds from the Roman, Greek, Persian, and
Hittite cultures. We'd be seeing things from as far back as the Assyrian and
Babylonian cultures; southeastern Turkey, with the headwaters of the Tigris and
Euphrates, had been part of Mesopotamia two millennia BCE.

He unveiled a tray of tiny treasures in glass and stone and clay. Their colors
ranged from shiny black to bone white, including pale pink, brown tiger-stripes,
deep blue, spotted green, and blood red.

First was a group of cylinder and stamp seals; with their tiny images and
symbols, they looked like beads no longer than my fingertip. Alongside them were
the impressions made by them on soft clay, showing how the marks would have
appeared on wax.

"I saw on the news that a lot of those kinds of things were stolen from the
museum in Baghdad during the war," Eugene said. "They were worth thousands and
thousands of dollars."

Leave it to Eugene, I thought. He was right, though; there would be a small
fortune in just a handful of the objects before us.

Some of the other pieces were similar to the one Rose had just handed over,
simple discs that could be used in any number of games. Another object was a
reconstructed bracelet, the beads restrung into a rainbow interspersed with
gold.

"It looks like yours, Tiff!" Nicole exclaimed.

Tiffany held out her necklace, purchased from one of the many vendors we
encountered at all of the sites. Although she might have found a similar
souvenir anywhere in the world—little glass beads were, after all, just
little glass beads—she was pleased.

Even more spectacular were the metallic objects on the next tray: coins and
jewelry in silver, gold, and bronze. And one very small piece was possibly the
most valuable on the whole table. A tiny bronze figure of a stylized horse,
possibly a votive offering to one of the many gods in Anatolia, which made up
most of what is modern Turkey.

"Every object, no matter its monetary value," Dr. Saatchi said, "has a story to
tell us, about the people who owned it, where it came from, and how it got here.
That history—"

A klaxon sounded at near-deafening levels. Randy started; his flailing hand
knocked into Brian, who had been taking a close-up of one of the coins.

Artifacts scattered from the velvet-covered table. Everyone automatically bent to
gather them.

"Fire alarm!" Lale called out. "Please do not touch anything! Follow me out of
the room. Be careful not to step on anything!"

A few people set the artifacts on the tray and we filed out and hurried down the
hall to the main entrance. Constitutionally unable to pass a vendor or shop
without stopping, Randy paused at the displays of the museum store. He began to
pick through the piles of loose beads.

"Please, we must leave the building, Randy." Lale was remarkably polite,
considering. "We will return shortly, and the shop will still be open."

Another group of tourists, presumably doing a walking tour of the city, paused
nearby us outside the museum, while their guide explained the history and
importance of the artifacts inside. The fire-alarm racket made the guide have to
speak up, and she apparently made a joke: The group looked around and laughed. I
certainly hoped they'd be going in tomorrow, as it seemed rather silly for them
only to view the outside of the building.

Lale, ever alert to maximize the good in any situation, saw a woman cooking in
the front of a tiny storefront restaurant. After introducing herself, she spoke
rapidly to her in Turkish, then gestured for us all to gather round as waiters
handed us all glass cups of tea on saucers with tiny spoons and two pieces of
lump sugar.

"Mrs. Kaya has offered to do a demonstration of Turkish cooking for us while we
wait to return to the museum."

The tour group outside the museum had apparently seen our tea and were pressing
in. I frowned when someone pushed a little too hard.

Get your own Mrs. Kaya,
I thought.
She's ours.

"Jack, Harold, if you would like to gather round?" Lale said.

I stepped over to let Jack in, as Mrs. Kaya spoke rapid-fire Turkish to Lale, who
translated for us. The older woman nipped off small pieces of dough with her
fingertips, stretching them out flat, then she made a well with a deft gesture
of her thumb. She filled the dough with a small pinch of what looked like ground
beef and herbs, pinching the sides closed at the top, making a dumpling no
larger than my thumbnail.

"This is
manti,"
Lale explained. "Although Mrs. Kaya uses lamb, you can
use ground beef, and after they're boiled, you top them with fresh yogurt and
browned butter and chili powder. It is one of my favorite dishes from
childhood."

She spoke again to Mrs. Kaya, who dusted off her hand and brushed Lale's cheek in
an affectionate, grandmotherly gesture. Mrs. Kaya continued working, but called
to one of her assistants. Soon we were all given spoons and were sampling the
finished project.

Across the little knot of our group, I saw Brian jotting down notes without
taking his eyes off Mrs. Kaya's movements. She'd moved on to rolling up seasoned
rice in grape leaves, with a series of motions that were so fluid they could
only have been acquired after years of practice. The finished product was
thinner than I expected, no thicker than a pen or a marker, and perfectly
wrapped.

Mrs. Kaya spoke. "If any of you would like to try to do this yourselves, you may
now," Lale translated. "This is an excellent opportunity to learn from a real
home-style cook at work."

Immediately, Brian, Tiffany, and Jack stepped forward. "This is what I'm talking
about," Jack said enthusiastically. "Never mind the old stuff, point me towards
lunch."

Each was given a pickled grape leaf and shown how to fold it around the rice.
Brian got better with each try, and soon, about a half-dozen slender tubes were
arranged by his plate. Mrs. Kaya pursed her lips and nodded once.

Tiffany kept giggling, posing for Nicole to take her picture. "Look, I'm doing
something cultural!"

Jack's efforts were more labored, but he proceeded gamely. He grabbed one of the
misshapen rolls and popped it into his mouth, chewing exaggeratedly to general
laughs.

"Well, traditionally we wait until they are steamed," Lale said
diplomatically.

At that moment, a guard from the museum came over and whispered something to
Lale. Her smile vanished, and she inquired about something. I cursed my lack of
Turkish beyond "hello," "thank you," and other tourist necessities.

"We must return to the museum." She spoke to Mrs. Kaya, gave her a small gift of
money for the demonstration, then guided us back.

The alarm was off now, but the staff was buzzing like bees in a kicked hive. We
were still the only tourists around, and it was after official hours. Surely we
wouldn't be continuing now, when it was so late?

Lale waited for Harold to join us, and when Randy beat a path for the shop, she
spoke sharply. "I'm afraid we must stay close together, Randy. I have some very
disturbing news. There are some artifacts missing."

"From the ones we were looking at? But none of us even touched them."

But some of us had. I remembered the instinct to retrieve them myself. Several
people had replaced the small, elusive objects on the cloth after we were told
to leave.

"No, of course not. Dr. Saatchi is concerned that perhaps they might have
accidentally gotten snagged on a sock or in a cuff, when the tray went flying.
We would like to put your bags through the X-ray machine again, as we did when
we came in. Just to be sure. And, if you wouldn't mind turning out your pockets?
I'm sure no one would take anything on purpose, but when everything went flying,
it is possible . . ."

She ended lamely, and I knew she was only doing her job, which had just become a
hundred times more difficult. Both her professional and personal reputation were
at stake.

"Well, I'm not going to—" Rose said, gathering herself up for a
long-winded refusal.

"I'll go first," I said quickly. If I could cut her protests off, maybe everyone
else would fall into line, and we could get this sorted out. Or at least, remove
ourselves from the equation.

I handed Lale my bag, which she handed to the guard, and it went through the
X-ray. Then the guard went through the bag by hand, after I nodded permission. I
emptied out my pockets onto the table, then pulled them out to show they were
empty. To finish the point, I checked the bottoms of my hiking shoes, to make
sure there was nothing caught in the treads. Nothing.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to sort the large pile of tissues, Purell
bottles, Swiss Army knife, lira coins, sunglasses, phrase book, and camera back
into the pockets of my shirt and trousers.

"Jeez," someone muttered. "I've seen pool halls with fewer pockets." There were a
few nervous giggles. Good; anything to break up the tension.

Brian stepped up next, and I could have kissed him.

Jack went after him, shrugging. "I don't like this," he said. "But I've got
nothing to hide."

Although Eugene Tollund didn't rebel, he followed, with poor grace. "Not what I
paid so much money for," he mumbled.

Rose was still talking up and down about police and rights and citizenship, when
Randy finally said, "Rosie, just do it."

She did, eventually, but still invoking the embassy and her cousin, the alderman,
at home. Nicole and Tiffany followed, but reluctantly, exchanging meaningful
glances.

No one had any of the missing artifacts.

"The Storm God's gonna be totally pissed now," Nicole whispered.

 
We went to our hotel that night tired, dusty, and bewildered. None
of the missing artifacts—including the votive horse—had been
recovered, and Lale had been on her cell phone almost nonstop. I was curious as
to how she would handle the situation. I found myself going over to offer my
help, when I felt an arm on my shoulder.

"It's not your problem to solve," Brian said. "And if there has been a theft, I'm
sorry to say you're as much a suspect as anyone here."

"More," Harold added suddenly. "You're one of the few people who knows anything
about this stuff."

For his first time talking directly to me, it was a hell of a thing to say. I
gave Harold a sour look.

He shrugged. "I'm just calling it like I see it."

I nodded to Brian. "You're right; this isn't my problem to solve. Say, this is an
American chain hotel, right? With an American-style bar? I could use an
American-style whiskey."

Brian and I sat up late, with a couple of drinks, which were hugely refreshing.
We'd been careful to avoid the local water, and cold drinks, besides beer and
the licorice-flavored raki, were rare. We were alone; Harold was on the other
side of the bar, having refused our invitation to sit with us. He was handling
his lighter like he was jonesing for a cigar, and eventually, he removed a metal
tube from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and shook the cigar out. Nodding to us,
he said goodnight.

Harold didn't go to the elevators, though. He went outside. A brief flare of the
lighter, and he vanished.

"Randy kept wandering over to the gift shop," Brian said, when he noticed I
couldn't seem to focus on anything else with real attention. "I know he's got
this magpie-like compulsion, but it really was excessive today. If he did it, I
wondered if he hadn't stashed something over there."

"Hiding the real thing among the souvenir beads and the imitation coins and
seals?" I tilted my head. "It would make sense. If he took it."

"He bumped up against my camera when the alarm went off," Brian reminded me.
"Maybe he was making a distraction, so his wife could snag a few things. We know
she has a taste for unsupervised antiquities. Or perhaps she picked up that
gaming disc intentionally, as a distraction? A way for their eyes to be on Lale
and her talking to Dr. Saatchi while her husband did the work?"

I shrugged. "Seems too elaborate. And she couldn't count on finding something at
the sites we visited. There was nothing on her when they searched her. Of
course, that doesn't mean she or Randy
couldn't
have done it."