“I realize there’s a grocery list on one side of the paper, but it’s the Arabic writing on the other side that I need you to translate for me,” Liz said.
“That’s just what I am telling you. The Arabic writing is also a grocery list, you see. It lists exactly the same things in Arabic, and in the same order, as it does in English. Look here: This word, tuffahah, it means ‘apple.’ One apple. For apples in general, we say tuffah. For two apples, we say tuffahtayn. This Arabic word, mishmish, means ‘apricot.’ This word teen means ‘figs.’ And, here, tukki, that means ‘wild berry.’ It looks like someone has a taste for fruits.”
The grocery list might not have been very helpful, but at least something remained to be learned from the book dealer. “I still have the book title for you to translate, if you wouldn’t mind,” Liz said, taking out the photo of the Johanssons’ living room with the open book splayed on the armchair.
The book dealer’s demeanor changed. But he retained a polite tone as he said, “This is a strange way to inquire about a book title and, perhaps, a less honest approach than I would have expected from a polite lady like yourself, to involve me in something I should not involve myself in. This is a police photo, is it not?” he said, holding the eight-by-ten-inch picture at arm’s length.
“You were correct, Mr. Al-Turkait, when you said it is a complicated, worrying story that brings me into your shop the day before Christmas. And you deserve to know the background of my inquiry. Will you please let me fill you in?”
Setting down the photo and fetching more coffee for them both, Faisel Al-Turkait sat without a word while Liz told him how the list had been found in a New York City cab, how the cab and a few photos were all she had to go on regarding Ellen Johansson’s outing, and how the cabdriver had gone missing, too. “I’ve been grasping at straws,” she concluded.
“But sometimes that’s the only way to find the needle in the haystack,” Faisal Al-Turkait said. “Perhaps you’ve found one such needle here,” he added, picking up the photo. “The title of this book translates to Slang and Common Arabic Expressions for Foreign Service Officers. It’s edited by Martin Holmesby.”
“The British intelligence expert who’s always commenting on problems in the Middle East!” Liz exclaimed, meeting the book dealer’s eyes.
“Your taxi driver may be an average guy, but perhaps your lady is a spy,” he said.
Chapter 14
Liz popped open her umbrella to walk back to her car, crossing the street this time to get a closer look at shop windows on the other side. They were just as varied and just as interesting. Here, a carpet shop loaded with the “Remnants and Mill Ends” its sign promised was neighbor to a Portuguese fish market and a toy emporium calling itself Godzilla Toyshop. A few doors down, Liz came upon the Globetrotter’s Music Shop, with a window advertisement promising, “International Instruments Our Specialty.”
Here was a case of truth in advertising. The walls reaching up to high ceilings were hung with drums of every description, many of them made of skins stretched over huge, hollowed-out gourds. There were also maraca-like gourds on handles, and guitars, balalaikas, lutes, ukuleles, and banjos.
“Do you carry strings for Irish tenor banjos?” Liz asked the clerk and was pleased when he pulled four cellophane packets, each containing a different string, from a well-organized drawer.
After paying the clerk, she returned to her car and drove through very sluggish shopping traffic to the newsroom. She arrived early enough to open a number of small gifts on her desk, adding several small chocolates she found there to her stash in the zipped coconut.
Then, after fetching a cup of coffee and sandwich from the cafeteria downstairs—egg salad, not chicken or turkey—she started to write her story about the turkey heist. Lines were not up, and she did not know how much space she’d be given, so she took special care to keep the essentials at the top of the story.
“It was a case of duck, duck, goose—and 24 turkeys, too—when a Santa-suit–clad scamster lifted 27 fresh-killed birds from Torrentino’s Poultry Place in East Cambridge yesterday,” Liz wrote.
“According to butcher and shop owner Luigi Torrentino, 68, his shop clerk Lucarno Fino, 15, was taken in by the Santa look-alike’s story that he was picking up the fresh-killed fowl for charity. Torrentino said the teen did not verify with him that the poultry was intended as a charitable donation.
“Detective Matt Hurley characterized the Christmas Eve day chicken heist as a scam. ‘The kid did chicken (expletive) to prevent it, though,’ Hurley said, referring to Fino. ‘In fact, he helped load the birds into the van they were taken away in. He actually helped the birds fly the coop,’ Hurley added. ‘And here’s the kicker. After all that, he couldn’t describe the vehicle!’ Hurley said.”
Liz pressed the H&J button on her keyboard and watched the machine lay out her story in a long column. The ATEX machine measured the piece, too. 3.6 inches. Probably just about right for the gravity of the crime.
Dermott McCann came by her desk, and said, “What have you got for me, Higgins? I need to know for the meeting.”
Liz gave him a nutshell summary. Then she made her way to the library to read her e-mail while McCann determined story sizes and placement in the afternoon meeting. Besides more spam messages reading “Blister,” there were Christmas messages from her mother, Aunt Janice, and several colleagues and friends. Nothing new from Cormac Kinnaird. Annoyed at how much it mattered to her, Liz knew she needed to separate her need for his professional expertise from her personal feelings for him. Although she would have preferred to phone him, in the hope that the tone of his voice would help her to read his mood, she knew she had to contact him regarding the Johansson case, so she tapped out an e-mail message on the keyboard: “Dear Cormac, I would very much like to connect with you regarding professional matters—and especially to deliver a little something to put under your Christmas tree. I hope you will get in touch with me as soon as it is convenient. With warm gratitude for the gorgeous bouquet, I wish you a Merry Christmas. Liz.”
After replying to a few family messages, Liz returned to her desk and saw the light blinking on her phone. Before picking it up, she logged onto ATEX and found her chicken heist piece was just the right length. She also read, with gratitude, the words “File and fly rule in effect. Merry XMAS.” After sending her story into the system, she dialed up her voice-mail messages and found she’d just missed a call from her mother and another one from Cormac.
“It’s Cormac,” the doctor said on her voice mail. “It’s a business matter. You can catch me on this line until around six-thirty, when I’ll be meeting some people at Tir Na Nog. Come to think of it, you can catch me there, too, in the evening.”
Liz looked at the clock. It was 6:20. But when she phoned Cormac, he did not pick up. Unprepared for this, she left an awkward but honest message.
“I’m disappointed not to find you in, Cormac,” she said. “And I feel unsure if I should take your time for business on Christmas Eve. Really, I don’t know what to do. I’ll give this all some thought during my drive and hope, whether I see you or not tonight, you have a wonderful Christmas.”
It might be a toss-up as to whether Liz should go to the Irish bar, but she was certain of one thing. If she did go out, there was no way this bird would turn up at a Christmas Eve gathering in the same clothes she’d worn to cover the fresh-killed poultry scam. So she got on the Pike and headed back to Gravesend Street.