“I understand and I’m sorry to impose, but we’re desperate for information. Any little connection might be significant.”
He falls silent. There are muted sounds of children playing in the background.
“Did they have any suspects for your daughter’s rape?” presses Julia.
The man laughs harshly. “That country is one of the most corrupt places on earth. The police didn’t do squat.”
“Do you know whether they got the attacker’s DNA?” asks Julia.
“Sorry. I can’t help you. Good luck with your sister.”
He hangs up. Julia and Leo stare at each other.
“He’s hiding something,” says Leo.
But Julia’s not listening. Her eyes are locked on the television screen above Leo’s head. Detective Muhtar is escorting a disheveled man in handcuffs into a police station. Julia scans the newsfeed text below.
“Oh my God, Leo. They’ve arrested someone.”
41
It’s like the universe has shrunk to the size of a small room. Maybe it’s because at that precise moment in time a small room is the only thing that matters, a room and the man sitting alone in it and what he has done to Toni. His head is bent, his thin, matchstick arms crossed on the table before him, the filthy T-shirt hanging loosely on his frame. His thinning gray hair, a disheveled, tangled mess, falls an inch shy of his collar and looks as if it hasn’t been washed in months.
He lifts a trembling hand to pick something from his teeth and the light seems to sour around him. He looks about nervously, a strange leer on his face, studying each wall, the camera in the corner. Then, quite suddenly, the man holds his head in his bony hands and weeps.
In the next room, Detective Muhtar, Julia, and Leo watch him on the monitor. For the first time, Julia sees his eye. The left one. It’s no more than a slit, the lid crimson, swollen like a boxer’s in a fight. A mottled bruise forms on his cheek, too.
“That guy owns a Lamborghini?” says Leo. “He looks like a vagrant.”
Detective Muhtar nods. “That’s because he is. His name is Asen Cevik. He has prior arrest record for loitering outside steam baths. One previous conviction for filming the underskirt of a woman and putting it on internet.”
“If he’s not the man in the Lamborghini then why did you arrest him?” says Julia.
Detective Muhtar pauses.
“I need to show you something.” He holds out a plastic evidence bag with an object inside. “Have you seen this before?”
Julia takes the bag and looks at the object. Her heart nearly stops beating. In the bag is a necklace. The same necklace that Toni never took off. The pendant is an ugly buckled penny from 1964 that Toni insisted was their mother’s but from Julia’s recollection was simply a discarded coin they found in gutter one time. When Toni was nine, she had asked Julia to make a hole for it so she could put it on a chain and wear it.
“Where did you get this from?”
Detective Muhtar nods toward the suspect. “He was picked up after trying to sell it at a pawn shop. He thought the penny was made of gold. You recognize it, yes? Your sister was wearing it in the photograph you gave us.”
Julia feels her stomach clench. Nodding, she says, “It belongs to Toni. She wears it all the time.”
A policewoman enters the interview room and gestures for the man to get to his feet.
“Wait. Where is she taking him?” says Julia.
“Back to the cells.”
“But someone needs to question him.”
Detective Muhtar stands and returns the necklace to the lock box. “We have completed the interrogation. He denies knowing anything about your sister and is refusing to say anything else.”
“Well, you can’t just accept that. You have to make him talk,” demands Julia.
Detective Muhtar looks at her evenly. “Everything is under control, Dr. Norris.”
Julia nods and softens her voice. “Of course. I know, and I’m not telling you how to do your job…it’s just that…”
“He has a brother who lives in a village near Bursa who might have more information. I will talk to him.”
“Okay, good. That’s good,” says Julia, nodding. “Are you going there now? Leo and I will join you.”
Detective Muhtar shakes his head. “You cannot come, Dr. Norris. It would not be appropriate.”
“But what if there are other items you need me to identify?”
“This is an official investigation and you are both civilians. You must stay behind,” he says, firmly.
Julia folds her arms. “Leo and I can’t just wait around here and do nothing, Detective. We’ll hire a car, a driver, whatever, and go to this Bursa village ourselves. And maybe we’ll ask a few questions of our own. Hand out some flyers. Who knows what information we might be able to dig up. Isn’t that right, Leo?”
“Oh, for sure,” says Leo, a smile playing on his lips.
Detective Muhtar runs a hand over his face and mutters something in Turkish.
Julia stands up straighter. “So I guess the choice is yours, Detective—bumbling, unpredictable amateurs messing up your investigation, or keeping us where you can see us so we won’t get in the way.”
42
They travel in Detective Muhtar’s battered Fiat, heading east across the Bosporus Bridge to the Asian side of Istanbul. Unlike the European side, this side is dominated by charmless office blocks and high-density housing with rooftop satellite dishes and ugly electricity pylons colonizing the hills. For Julia, most of it passes in a blur. She can’t stop thinking about the disheveled vagrant in the police station and what he might have done to Toni.
“How long before we get there?” she says.
Detective Muhtar glances in the rearview. “Three or so hours. Bursa is sixty miles south of Istanbul. The suspect’s brother lives in Agri village, another hour’s drive from there. The quickest route is to take the ferry to Yalova Port and travel by car. Otherwise it’s a six-hour drive overland.”
Three hours seems like an eternity
