Whiskers In The Dark

35

May 3, 2018

Thursday

Curiosity bit Harry like a mosquito. One bite, a scratch, then another. She couldn’t get Aldie out of her mind. Doing her chores, she ran through possibilities. The weather, perfect early May days, should have diverted her attention but no, she couldn’t get the two deaths out of her mind.

Sitting in her tack room, low sixties, a lovely light breeze, the door finally open, she could hear the horses outside playing. Spring fever didn’t just affect humans.

Mrs. Murphy sat next to Harry’s computer. Pewter, colossally bored since this wasn’t about her, snored, splayed out on the sheepskin saddle pads. Tucker sat by Harry’s chair.

“What’s she doing now?” Tucker inquired.

Mrs. Murphy peered over the top of the computer.

“Murphy, what are you doing?”

“She’s looking at pictures of a car dealership,” the cat answered her canine friend.

Lawsuits were public record. The very first thing Harry had done on Tuesday was to see if Montgomery County in Maryland had lawsuits on record. There was the one about drugs, and the dealership was dismissed from the case. The guilty party was still serving time. One case in 2009 proved a bit interesting in that a buyer sued for the entire replacement of the computer brains for a Mercedes that had been traded using a Lexus. Now there was a jump in taste. Harry read this with interest. The entire Mercedes had died, fritzed right out, for the rain had somehow driven up under the windshield wipers, seeping down into the brains of the car. Clearly human brains were becoming less and less necessary, according to carmakers. Anyway, the cost was well over seven thousand dollars, and that did not include the labor. The buyer’s insurance found a way to wiggle out. Understandably furious, one Mr. Samuel Bonfoy sued the dealership. This dragged on. Holzknect had inspected the car before the sale. Low miles, new tires, it seemed good, and it was until that unusual driving rainstorm. Harry, a motorhead, devoured the voluminous proceedings. Mercedes knew this was a design flaw but very few of their cars died in this fashion, sort of an automotive brain hemorrhage. They did not publicize the flaw. Holzknect again was exonerated. Fascinated, Harry checked on Mr. Bonfoy’s subsequent suit against Mercedes-Benz USA. Naturally, they initially refused to pay. Ultimately, they replaced his vehicle because Mr. Bonfoy hired the best law firm in the state of Maryland—and there were plenty—but these guys had fangs. Mercedes saw the wisdom of simply giving the plaintiff a brand-new car.

“Wow.” She continued to scroll.

It became clear that Jason and Clare were responsible people, took good care of their customers, plus they had the advantage of selling two of the most reliable brands in the country, if not the world.

“She’s still scrolling. You’d think she’d go blind,” Mrs. Murphy remarked.

“Computer screens ruin your eyes,” Tucker declared.

“How do you know that? You don’t have one.” The tiger cat teased her friend.

“Fair read it out of the paper. He likes to read aloud and I remember everything he reads. You know now he turns to the obituaries first.” Tucker was mystified.

“He turned forty and that is important to them. He’s what, forty-three? I forget, but I think he’s one or two years older than Mother.”

“Sets them right off, doesn’t it?” Tucker laughed.

“Sure seems to, but this death thing, I mean I understand the obituaries, sort of. She likes to send sympathy cards and go to services. She’s respectful that way, but unexplained death, she gets obsessed.”

“Jason getting his throat cut, well”—the corgi tilted her head upward—“pretty awful and now this thing with Clare. She doesn’t believe that it was natural. You smelled everything.”

“If Clare was murdered, it had to be without scent and clever, something we don’t know about. But Tucker, humans do keel over.”

Mrs. Murphy stuck her head over the computer again. “She’s trying to find Clare’s service record. Shouldn’t take long. Can’t be that many Lazos in the Navy. No matter when.”

“Why?” Tucker wondered.

Harry whispered to herself and the cat called down. “Clare’s discharge. It was honorable and now she’s seeing all the awards Clare won. Do they call them awards in the service?”

Tucker thought. “They get to wear ribbons on the left sides of their chests. But I don’t know if that’s called an award. It’s pretty, though all the colors and certain of those little ribbons mean wars. Then there’s the stripes on their sleeves. Humans put a big store by this stuff.”

“So Clare did well?”

“As did the dealership. Everything seems to be in order.” Tucker knew Harry still wouldn’t let this go.

Then Harry returned to the Google information on Jason, returned again to Facebook. She peered intently at the photographs, noting that the same Russian translator appeared, as did his Turkish counterpart. Given the centuries of tension between Russia and Turkey, this seemed in order. Jason’s linguistic abilities had to have been critical in assuring U.S. interest in both nations remained stable. Even with her limited understanding of foreign relations, Harry began to see Jason’s usefulness to the country’s political interests as well as economic ones.

The bribery, the threats, the military forays over the centuries added to the needs and dreams of the nations surrounding Turkey. For a mad moment Harry thought about Catherine the Great bribing Turks, Greeks, anyone to open that wedge to what was then called Constantinople, now Istanbul.

How much money was squandered the world over to buy friends, information, to open the back door?

She was suddenly glad she didn’t know but so much.

Harry got up out of her chair, walked into the center aisle of the barn to pace. Up and down, up and down.

“Don’t watch her. You’ll get a crick in your neck,” Mrs. Murphy advised.

Hands behind her back, Harry stopped in front of the open tack-room door, took a big breath, strode in, sat down, and picked up the old phone.

“Jan. It’s Harry Haristeen.”

“How odd. Geoff and I were just talking about you. You have the unenviable distinction of seeing two corpses at Aldie. Geoff saw one. That was enough.”

“He thought she was asleep, passed out.”

“Here, you talk to him.”

A deep voice came on at the other end of the line. “Harry.”

“Mr. Ogden.”

“You have, of course, spoken to the sheriff, as have I.”

“Yes. Let me get to the point. I don’t believe Clare’s death was natural and I believe it was connected to Jason’s. I have no idea why these two people were murdered, but may I ask you some questions about the foreign service, about our State Department? I don’t think I’m using the correct terminology.”

“Doesn’t matter. Go on.”

“When you were general counsel in Istanbul, Jason Holzknect worked in Ankara, the capitol, right?”

“Yes. This was a good assignment for a young man, only his second assignment. His fluency in Turkish made him valuable.”

“So I assume he was low down on the totem pole?”

“Well”—a pause followed this—“yes, but to be assigned to the capitol of an ally is a plum posting.”

“What would his duties entail?”

“He would speak directly to his counterparts in the Turkish government. He could call and chat with probably another young person, and the two could set up meetings for their bosses. He would also be expected to read the newspapers, any official bulletins from the Turkish government. He could speak to any other ambassador’s assistant fluent in Turkish.”

“But he had no real power?”

“No, but over time if his assessments of government proclamations, of economic development, officials in the Turkish government, proved correct, he would rise, and he did.”

“What about the Kurds? Would he have contact with them?”

“No, but he would keep us apprised of the government’s position on them as well as their relations with bordering states because people in those governments would be dealing with Turkey and someone in each office would be fluent in Turkish.”

“Most of the bordering states would speak Arabic?”

“No. Southeast of Turkey sits Iraq and Iran. Iranians speak Persian. Due south it’s Syria, a complete and terrible mess. Due west, Greece and Bulgaria. North sits Russia, the traditional enemy. Across the Black Sea is Sevastopol, ever famous because of the Crimean War. Georgia and Russia as well as Greece have a long, long history with Turkey. No one forgets the Ottoman Empire. There are many languages.”

“Would that mean because of all those languages, then, that Turkish would be understood by a fair enough number in those adjoining states, the governments?”

A long pause followed this. “Any government department in a bordering state would have people fluent in Turkish and others fluent in the languages surrounding them. It’s much more complex than here: for one thing, thousands of years of history especially between Greece and Turkey, then called Anatolia.”

“I would assume there is wariness?”

“That’s putting it politely.” Geoff half laughed.

“And Turkey is or was, in better times, our ally.”

“Technically it still is. Turkey is a key to peace. Always has been, and when the Ottoman Empire was called the Sick Man of Europe and other powers began to nibble at it, politics were destabilized. Atatürk changed all that.”

“So we need Turkey?”

“I think we do.”

“Me, too.” Jan called from the background.

“Let me switch gears for a minute. Clare Lazo was in the Navy, fluent in Russian.”

“I only know Clare from beagling, but occasionally we would talk about our careers. She was in Naval Intelligence on a ship in the Gulf of Finland. I take that as her most significant assignment. I’m sure there were others. Sitting there with Russian subs gliding underneath you, I’d say Clare had a lot on her mind.”

“She was discharged with honor when she didn’t re-up. Forty-five, I think.”

“I don’t know her age but she had a good career.”

“Did you ever wonder how she and Jason met?”

“No. All I know is they bought the dealership together and made bundles.”

“I’m racking my brain. I think she told me she met Jason while she was in the service. He was, I don’t know—why does Paris stick in my mind?”

“With luck we all got to Paris for at least a furlong.” Geoff laughed.

“You’ve been good to give me so much of your time.”

“Harry, I don’t know why two people are dead at Aldie, two well-respected people and well-respected beaglers. But let me give you a piece of advice. Let this go and keep your mouth shut.”

When Harry hung up the phone, she knew that Geoff and Jan also shared her suspicion and they knew far more about the world than she did. Why now and why Aldie? The other thing she felt more than she knew was that the murders had something to do with the fact that both victims excelled in two different, important languages.

Mrs. Murphy leaned on Tucker. “She’s got that look on her face.”

“Means we’re in for it.” Tucker groaned.

Pewter woke up. “You two were talking about me, weren’t you?”