“I already told you. Gathering and providing information.”
“Oh? What do you have in mind?”
“You’re going sightseeing,” she said.
So here Batty was, crossing through Taksim Square on the way to the Garanti Auction House, where Koray Ozan’s body had been found the previous evening. His task was to determine the exact location of the crime scene, and because Callahan was unable to secure blueprints of the building, she’d told him to check for entry points and potential security threats, then report back to her.
“What do you plan to do? Break in to the place?”
“I need access to that crime scene. And unless you’ve managed to get clearance from the local police, I don’t see any other way.”
“Seems pretty risky to me. The building’s bound to be wired up tight.”
“Let me worry about that part,” she said. “Your job is to observe only. Don’t get anxious and start sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You get yourself arrested, you’re on your own.”
The auction house was located a block north of the square and Batty didn’t need a street address to find it. There were still several polis cars parked out front, uniformed officers milling about.
The building was large, rectangular and starkly modern, with a broad set of steps leading up to the entrance. Above the sliding glass doors was a huge red banner, written in both Turkish and English, announcing a special black-tie charity auction set for eight P.M. that night.
House officials had closed the place immediately after the discovery of Ozan’s body, but the Hurriyet Daily News had reported that the auction would go on as scheduled. The exhibition room had been reopened this morning in order to display the pieces that were to be sold that night.
As Batty stood on the sidewalk out front, he felt a touch of trepidation, which wasn’t surprising considering what had happened inside. Overcome by a sudden reluctance to enter the building, he glanced around and noticed a tea shop on the opposite side of the street.
He crossed to it, found a table outside, and a moment later a waitress came out to take his order. “Yes?”
She was a petite, attractive woman in her early twenties. Her name tag read AJDA.
“Black tea,” he told her. “Extra sweet.”
She forced a smile, nodded, went back inside.
It was only then that Batty sensed something odd about the woman. He wasn’t sure what had stirred this feeling. There was no hint of sulfur in the air, although it could have been masked by her perfume or the smells of the city. Maybe it was that forced smile she’d given him or the strangely hollow quality to her eyes.
Or maybe he was just too paranoid for his own good.
As he waited for his order, he sat back in his chair and tried to relax, staring out at the auction house, knowing that his task was really nothing more than an exercise in redundancy. He didn’t need to see the crime scene to know exactly what had happened here.
All he had to do was close his eyes.
It took Callahan all of fifteen minutes to find Ozan’s remains.
The hardest part had been getting past the security checkpoint in the police department lobby, thanks to an overeager newbie who’d had to consult three different supervisors before letting her through.
In the end, the freshly minted ID and Callahan’s flawless Turkish had done the trick, and she took an elevator up to the forensics wing, where the antiquities dealer’s body was being stored for examination.
It frustrated Callahan that she had to go to these lengths just to get a look at the victim. Section had a contact inside the department, but he’d developed a case of nerves and had told them his ability to assist them would be severely limited. So Callahan was on her own and flying blind.
But then flying blind seemed to be her standard operating procedure these days. Section had tasked her to find out if these two deaths were truly related, but she still had no idea why.
Was it possible they believed there was a paranormal component to all of this? Was it possible that out of all the experts they could have paired her with, they’d offered up LaLaurie precisely because of his back story? And could this be why they’d insisted he accompany her to Istanbul?
These questions had been plaguing her ever since he’d told her about his wife. And Section’s failure to fully disclose what they knew about him concerned her. She’d seen them do a lot of questionable things in her time, but forgoing a deep background check was not one of them, and it annoyed her to think that they didn’t trust her.
She could only imagine what they’d do if they knew about her sleep irregularities and that episode back in Paradise City. They’d no doubt pull her from the field and eliminate her.
Section wasn’t known for its sentimentality.
She didn’t suppose their trust in her would be bolstered by her decision to send LaLaurie into the wild. But Callahan felt it was justified. Except for the two whiskeys he’d had in the hotel bar, he seemed to have gotten a handle on his drinking-had twice turned down the opportunity to indulge on the plane-and since Callahan didn’t have the help of any local operatives, she figured she might as well put him to work. He wasn’t a pro, but a little reconnaissance mission shouldn’t get him into too much trouble, as long as he stuck to protocol.
The elevator dropped her off on the fourth floor. A sign on the wall indicated that the forensics wing was to her left down a bustling hallway, and she located the autopsy room without much effort.
It was small and busy, five exam tables laid out in a way that made the most economical use of the space allotted, while giving each of the lab techs room to move. Three of them were working right now, cutting into flesh, weighing organs, preparing slides for further examination as they dictated into microphones mounted above each of their tables.
Callahan found a rack of lab coats near the door and slipped one on, clipping her ID badge to the pocket. She went from table to table, nodding hello to the techs, carefully checking the bodies as she progressed. But none of them were Ozan.
There was a window to her right, a room full of lab equipment beyond it. She crossed to the door, stepped inside, and her gaze went immediately to a nearby counter, where the charred remains of a body lay atop a white towel.
Bingo.
Section had been right to be concerned. If these remains were any indication, the case did look as if it were related to the Sao Paulo death. The body was in almost exactly the same state as Gabriela Zuada’s.
Callahan wouldn’t know for sure until she got a look at the actual crime scene, but she doubted this was a coincidence.
There was a camera mounted on a stand next to the towel. One of the remains-a blackened femur-had been laid out on a rectangular platform, waiting to be photographed. Next to this was a computer terminal, showing a photo array, various parts of the body already catalogued and added to the police file.
Callahan reached into a pocket and brought out an SD memory card. Slipping it into a slot in the computer, she initiated a download and waited as the file’s contents ticked off, photo by photo, document by document.
It was about halfway finished when a voice behind her said in Turkish, “Who are you? What are you doing in here?”
Callahan turned with a start and saw a mousy-looking guy in a lab coat glowering at her.
As Batty sipped his tea, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something about the waitress wasn’t quite right, and he knew he was starting to obsess.
Being sober definitely had its downside.
He had no doubt that hundreds, even thousands, of waitresses in this city would stir up the exact same feeling-along with cab drivers, cops, doctors, construction workers, secretaries and everything in between. But that didn’t make it any easier for him.