They were out there in force. Always had been. A battalion of compromised souls, willing to do whatever they were told in the name of their keeper. Yet despite his uneasiness, he knew that obsessing over it wouldn’t do him a lick of good.
Knowing that this waitress was only a stone’s throw from the auction house, however, led him to believe that she might be involved in a little gathering and providing of her own. And if that was true, she could well be directly connected to whatever dark entity had attacked and killed Ozan. And Gabriela Zuada.
And Rebecca.
Finishing up his tea, he set the glass on its saucer, then rose and dropped a few coins on the table.
Enough stalling. Time to do what he came here for.
Crossing the street, he moved past the polis cars and milling cops and headed up the steps to the auction house entrance. The glass doors slid open as he approached, and the moment he stepped inside he felt it-
– The lingering residue of death.
There was a reception desk out front, a smartly dressed but somber-looking woman sitting behind it, undoubtedly still feeling the sting of their loss.
To her right was the exhibition room, the glass cases along its walls holding various antiques, artifacts and ancient statuary. Oil paintings hung above them in ornate frames-Baroque, Byzantine, High Renaissance. Heavenly landscapes full of winged cherubs stood in stark contrast to the more violent works, including one that depicted the beheading of Holofernes by the widow Judith.
The sight of her sword cutting into his neck made Batty shudder.
To his left was a set of open double doors, leading to the auction room itself, where several rows of chairs faced a podium and display table. Farther left was an elevator, a uniformed security guard standing next to it, and beyond him was a carpeted stairwell that led into the bowels of the building, another guard blocking passage to it.
Batty glanced at the directory on the wall between them. Also written in Turkish and English, it indicated that the building’s offices and archives were located down those stairs.
According to Callahan’s intelligence brief, this was where Ozan’s body had been discovered, in a seldom-used archive room. But Batty didn’t need a sign to tell him this. He could feel it rolling up toward him from that stairwell, a relentless, screaming brutality that was difficult to ignore.
He doubted there were any windows or other modes of entry down there, and if these guards stayed in place throughout the night, there was no way Callahan would ever get past them.
One of them was looking at him now. Batty smiled, nodded to him, then crossed to the exhibition room and pretended to browse, surreptitiously scanning the rest of the lobby.
Restrooms and pay phones directly across from the stairs. Fire extinguishers and pull alarms strategically placed along the walls. A tinted glass window next to a door marked GUVENLIK-SECURITY.
He was contemplating the futility of his task when the elevator doors slid open and several men stepped out: plainclothes cops, along with three crime-scene technicians carrying their gear in plastic toolboxes.
They all looked weary, which meant that they had worked through the night and most of the day. And if the evidence they’d gathered was as sparse as it had been in Sao Paulo, they had a baffling mystery to solve.
Batty shook his head morosely.
They had no idea what they were dealing with here.
And he couldn’t help but envy them.
I asked you a question,” Lab Coat said. “What are you doing in here?”
Callahan feigned irritation, returning her attention to what was left of Ozan’s body. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she said in Turkish. “I’m cataloging the victim’s remains.”
“I thought Leila was handling that?”
She fiddled with the camera. “Leila had an errand to run and asked me to cover for her.”
“But I just saw her going into the washroom.”
Callahan looked up sharply. “So are you the one who’s been stalking her?”
He jerked his head back. “What?”
“She told me somebody from the lab has been harassing her. She’s on her way to personnel right now.”
He looked aghast. “And you think it’s me?”
Callahan shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, I just started here-where are Ozan’s personal effects?”
He blinked at her, confused by the sudden change of subject.
“His personal effects,” she said impatiently. “Where are they?”
“I . . . I’m not sure,” Lab Coat sputtered. “Already in storage, I suppose. It’s not my case.”
“Then why are you wasting my time?”
His mouth dropped open as if he were about to say something more, but then he closed it again, shaking his head in dismay as he walked away.
Callahan let out a breath. She had a feeling he’d be back soon.
Turning to the computer, she saw that her download was done and quickly removed the memory chip, dropping it into her pocket.
Less than a minute later, she was headed down the hallway toward the elevators.
Batty stood outside the auction house, watching the polis drive away. He’d seen enough of the place to know what Callahan was up against, and despite her confidence, he doubted she’d be able to get past those guards without a major bit of subterfuge.
Fortunately, he’d found one-although getting her to buy into it might be difficult.
As he watched the last of the patrol cars disappear around a corner, an icy wind blew through him. Glancing toward the teahouse, he saw a silhouette in the doorway.
The waitress. Ajda.
There was no doubt in his mind about her now.
She was a drudge.
Possibly even a sycophant.
And he knew that before he left Istanbul, he’d have to have a very serious talk with her.
25
We’ve got a bit of a problem,” Callahan said.
She was sitting in an armchair playing with her cell phone when Batty returned to their hotel room, and he was starting to wonder if the thing was superglued to her hand. She’d told him about the condition of Ozan’s body, which hadn’t surprised him in the least.
“What kind of problem?”
“According to the police reports, our new victim’s been dead for a while. He went missing four days ago and nobody thought to take a peek into that archive room until a janitor happened by and smelled something sour.”
“Four days,” Batty said. “That means he was killed before Gabriela.”
This revelation stirred something at the periphery of Batty’s mind. A thought that slipped away as quickly as it came, leaving him grasping but unable to retrieve it. Something about Ozan, and . . .
. . . and what?
“It also means we’re headed in exactly the wrong direction,” Callahan said. “And God knows who our perp will go after next.”
“I think that’s pretty obvious. Another guardian.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure this whole Custodes Sacri thing holds up.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t get a look at Ozan’s personal effects,” Callahan said. “They’d been bagged and sent to storage and the clerk there wouldn’t allow access without one of the investigators signing off on it. So all I have is an itemized list from the file, which isn’t much. But it’s enough.”
“For what?”
She tossed the cell phone to him. No superglue in evidence. He looked at the screen and saw a bunch of Turkish writing. It was a list all right, but not one he could decipher. “You’re assuming I can read this?”
She was surprised. “You mean to tell me I’ve just discovered something you don’t know?”
He tossed the phone back to her. “Translation, please.”
“Five items,” she said, and ticked them off on her fingers. “A watch, a pen, a wallet and two rings, one gold, one silver-little more than lumps of melted metal.”