Hard Rain

Fourteen

‘I don’t know what you see in this jerk,’ I said as we went down in the elevator to the parking lot. Masters didn’t answer. ‘Can I ask what you see in this jerk?’

‘No, you can’t,’ she replied.

‘The whole depleted-uranium mess he’s involved with doesn’t trouble you at all?’

‘Richard is doing his job, just like you and me.’

‘No, nothing like you and me.’

‘Really. And why do you think we’re so different?’

‘Because if we do our jobs right, there’s no question about guilt or innocence. The suspect either is, or isn’t. Guys like Wadding are the Uri Gellers of facts. They twist them up so that guilt looks like innocence. Tyler Dean — that buddy of mine? I don’t believe your fiancé has never heard of him, because he is, in fact, the pin-up boy for the plaintiffs — their front man.’

‘What about Capstone?’ Masters asked.

‘What about it?’ I said.

We climbed into Emir’s home away from home. Masters read him the address for Ms Fatma Zerzavatci from the note Karli had given her. I was getting used to Emir. Maybe because Emir was getting used to chauffeuring without putting his mouth into drive.

‘If, as you say, your friend Tyler is the point man, he’d know about the Capstone report,’ Masters continued. ‘And if he hasn’t filled you in on the report’s findings, then it’s probably because he didn’t want to put any doubt into your head.’

‘So why don’t you?’

‘A Capstone report was compiled for the government on the effects of depleted uranium ammunition in response to claims that it was carcinogenic. The report found that the health risks of depleted uranium oxides were comparable to many other battlefield materials; that it was no more and no less lethal to our people that anything else out there in the Iraqi desert.’

‘And who put the report together?’ I asked. ‘One of Mr Geller’s people?’

‘You’ll believe what you want to believe, Vin, as you always do.’

Masters turned away and watched the people on the sidewalk huddle along in the cold. Conversation closed. Suited me. I didn’t want to get into an argument I didn’t know enough about to win. I made a mental note to give Tyler a call and get some background on Colonel Wad.

Fatma Zerzavatci, alias Mrs Bremmel, Dutch Bremmel’s personal assistant and the woman who assisted him personally at the Istanbul Hilton on a regular basis, was a tall, slender woman of twenty-seven with skin the colour of cream. Her eyes reminded me of honey, or at least one of them did — the other being bright red with burst capillaries buried in a puffy purple-and-black bruise that spread down her left cheek like an advancing electrical storm.

Usually a resident of Eskisehir, the headquarters of TEI where she and Bremmel worked, the woman was in town until the Istanbul police said otherwise. So she’d moved in with her mother, grandmother and two unemployed brothers for the duration. From the outside, the house looked like it’d been made by one of the three little pigs, the one who’d used sticks, or, in this instance, old blackened fence palings. Geographically speaking, the street was close to Beyoglu, the affluent area where Doctor Merkit had her practice; socio-economically, however, the place’s immediate neighbour was skid row.

A young man of around twenty-five, who I figured was one of the brothers, answered the door when we knocked. He opened it angry, and his demeanour deteriorated from there. I saw Fatma behind him, head bowed. I showed him my shield and he reacted by yelling at us in Turkish, shaking his fist and smacking his open palm against the doorjamb hard enough to shake the floor beneath my feet. I noticed he’d lost some skin from two of his knuckles — probably somewhere on his sister’s face. He banged the door shut.

A couple of seconds later, after more shouting, the other, younger brother tag-teamed, opened the door, and took over the yelling, then slammed it in our faces again.

Masters and I stood our ground.

Next, Mrs Zerzavatci, who was wearing what appeared to be a black tent, opened the door. Was this the mother or the grandmother? I’ve always found a beard on a woman confusing. Fatma Zerzavatci stood calmly in the hallway, head still bowed, while the emotional storm raged around her.

We showed our shields again. Masters took half a step forward and asked, ‘Fatma, do you mind if we come in and ask you a few questions?’

Granny put her hand out and pushed Masters back. I took that as a yes, she would mind.

‘It is all right, Mooshie,’ Fatma told her, attempting to soothe the old woman. ‘I have to talk with them.’

Even if Zerzavatci the elder didn’t understand the words, she picked up on the tone, standing aside reluctantly. She shook her finger at us and appeared to be threatening dire consequences if we did whatever it was she didn’t want us to do. I had no idea what that might have been.

‘Please come in,’ said Fatma.

The old woman muttered at us as we squeezed past. Once we were inside, one of the angry brothers stuck his head out of a room at the end of the short hallway and shouted at us some more.

‘Please… in here.’ Fatma indicated a room with a sweep of her hand.

The house might well have come down with a huff and a puff, but inside it was spotlessly clean, at least this room was. A huge 52-inch flat-screen plasma sitting on a designer stand dominated it. The box seat was provided by a designer tan leather couch covered in plastic, like the seats in Emir’s car, partnered by two leather armchairs also wearing furniture condoms. Scattered across the couch and armchairs were purple silk cushions embroidered with a silver pattern. A collection of plastic flowers stood in a cut-glass vase positioned on an expensive iron and glass stand. The walls were covered in soft blue- and greenstriped wallpaper, and several framed photos of old people hung here and there. Dark red Turkish rugs covered the floor. To say the décor was a lot more than I expected was the day’s understatement.

Fatma took one of the armchairs. Masters and I sat on the couch.

‘Did your brother do that?’ enquired Masters, indicating the young woman’s shiner.

‘It is nothing,’ Fatma said, touching her cheek self-consciously.

‘Where did all the loot come from, Ms Zerzavatci?’ I asked. I knew the answer, but I wanted to see how candid the woman was prepared to be.

‘Dutch and I were lovers. He bought me things,’ she said.

Okay, I thought, she passed that test. ‘Is that why your brothers are so upset? The presents have dried up?’ I asked.

‘I have dishonoured my family.’

‘We can organise protection, you know,’ Masters said.

Could we? I wasn’t so sure about that. I cut in before Ms Zerzavatci decided to take us up on the offer. ‘How long had you and Mr Bremmel been lovers?’

‘We started seeing each other six months ago.’

I flipped open my notebook. ‘You started working for Mr Bremmel seven months ago.’

‘Yes, we were lovers almost from the start. He was unhappy, lonely. His wife didn’t love him anymore. She went back to America. They were husband and wife in name only. He told me he was going to leave her for me.’

I glanced at Masters and caught the slightest arch of an eyebrow. Her turn for an I-told-you-so moment.

‘You met him at the Istanbul Hilton every two weeks?’ I asked.

‘Not always. Sometimes we missed the appointment. Dutch worked very hard.’

‘Did you meet anywhere else?’ Masters enquired.

‘No. The Hilton was our special place — our reward, he would say.’

And Dutch sure collected it, I thought.

‘Had you told anyone about your affair? Your brothers, perhaps?’ Masters asked.

I knew where Masters was going, and it was a reach. Two brothers, two killers — plenty of passion. I didn’t buy it for a second, but she was right to tick it off the list.

‘No, we were careful,’ she said.

Hmm… not careful enough. The killers, whoever they were, knew of their regular sausage sizzle at the Hilton. ‘Did Mr Bremmel make it up to the room, Ms Zerzavatci?’

The young woman’s chin quivered. ‘No, he didn’t. I was waiting for him. I was getting worried because he had not called to say he would be late. And then the police came to the room with the hotel security man and another man — I think it was the manager. I saw them and I was very worried. I knew something had happened, something bad.’

And now for the question I already knew the answer to. ‘Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill Mr Bremmel, Ms Zerzavatci?’ Aside from, as Masters had suggested, the real Mrs Bremmel? Fatma was a looker — beautiful in that pouty, Mediterranean way. She was the kind of woman who, in my experience, most other women feel threatened by, especially older women, and especially older women whose husbands had them for PAs.

Fatma Zerzavatci answered the question like I expected she would. She shook her head. ‘No, I can think of no one.’

‘Did Dutch Bremmel have good relationships with everyone at work?’ Masters asked.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Fatma, head bowed.

‘So, no threats from anyone? Arguments? Heated discussions?’

‘You ever see him push in front of someone at the staff canteen, maybe?’ I asked.

Masters looked at me, her eyes narrowed to slits. Ms Zerzavatci did likewise, only without the eyelid theatrics, unsure about whether she’d heard me right.

I explained: ‘At this point, Ms Zerzavatci, we’d check up on just about anything.’

‘No. Everyone liked Dutch. He was funny. He made people laugh — always telling jokes.’

I recalled how close I’d come to a horrible death myself the other day when telling Masters my lawyer jokes. Maybe that’s what had happened here — Bremmel had simply told the wrong joke to the wrong person at the wrong time. Only that didn’t explain the finger up the guy’s emergency exit: the Portman connection.

I had no reason to doubt this woman’s story. The facts were straighter than Hugh Hefner. She was having an affair with the boss, and someone stalked him and killed him for reasons that had something to do with Portman, reasons she knew nothing about. About all we were going to squeeze from Bremmel’s girlfriend here were tears, which I noticed had started to flow down the peaches-and-cream cheek, as well as the one that reminded me of stewed fruit. We still had nothing besides two very dead bodies — no leads and no suspects.