WASHINGTON DC: The Sadir Affair (The Puppets of Washington Book 1)

  Chapter 36

  Carvey arrived in Caroline Street at about three o’clock. He had been told Millicent was home of an afternoon generally. He parked the rental car nearby and made his way up the street and down the laneway leading to the entrance of the building. He looked up at the row of tall pines lining the lane and facing the apartments’ terraces. Well hidden from any peeping toms, he thought, but climbing these trees would give any burglars easy access to the flats.

  He rang the doorbell marked “Harsinai” and waited. When he heard an ageing woman call down to him, he looked up at the third floor balcony.

  “And who might you be?” Mrs. Harsinai yelled to Carvey.

  “I am Officer Sylvester Carvey, ma’am, from the New South Wales Police Headquarters.”

  “And what would a New South Wales Police Officer be doing at my door?”

  “If I may come upstairs, ma’am, I shall explain.”

  “All right, Officer Carvey, come up,” Millicent said, turning toward the inside of her flat.

  Once on the top floor landing, Carvey waited for a couple of minutes in front of the door. He heard the woman (he assumed) rummage through things and wondered what she could be doing.

  Millicent Harsinai flung the door wide-open, stood stock still, and looked up and down at the man facing her. Her long, flowery dress enveloped her body perfectly, without enhancing her ample curves. The salt-and-pepper hair and grey eyes gave one the impression this lady was as sharp as they come.

  “Aren’t you an Adonis!” Millicent said to him with a broad smile lighting her face.

  “I’m sorry?” Carvey blurted. “I’m Officer Sylvester Carvey. Were you expecting someone else?” Obviously, Adonis didn’t mean anything to him.

  Millicent burst into laughter, putting one hand in front of her mouth and tapping the officer on the arm with the other. “No-no, dear, nothing of the sort... But do come in, come in.”

  “Yes, ma’am, thank you.”

  “Have a seat.” She pointed to a sofa along the far wall of what Carvey thought would be a very nice lounge room if it weren’t for the table and computer encumbered of papers, folders, books, and for the files being strewn about the floor or being piled precariously atop the other pieces of furniture. “And don’t be surprised with the mess, I’m a writer, as you probably know, and this is my office…”

  “Not to worry, ma’am, I understand.” Carvey sat down, no longer looking at the mess but at the pictures that adorned the walls. There were several of flowers, a couple depicting a street scene, and another three—landscapes, apparently of the same area.

  Millicent cleared a chair of the books that filled the seat, and plopped herself into it.

  She noticed his eyes travelling around the walls of the room. “Ah, yes,” she said, “my paintings. Do you like them?”

  “I’m no connoisseur, Mrs. Harsinai, but they’re very beautiful.”

  “Indeed. I love them. A dear friend of mine painted them for me. I mean, not exactly for me, but she left them to me when she passed.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry...”

  “Don’t be...” Millicent waved a hand in front of her. “She’s in a better place now.”

  Carvey didn’t know how to reply, so he said nothing and lowered his eyes to the floor.

  “But, I’m sure you didn’t come all this way to talk about my friend’s paintings, so what brought you down to Melbourne and to my home?”

  He looked up. He didn’t know how he would tackle this. “Well, ma’am...” He hesitated. “It has come to our attention that you have a friend by the name of Samuel Meshullam.”

  Millicent’s face paled. She seemed frozen in time and place. “What happened?” Her voice was trembling. “Has there been an accident? Is he alright?”

  “Yes, ma’am, as far as we know, he is fine.”

  She let out an audible sigh, placed a hand on her chest, and reclined in the chair.

  “I’m sorry, Officer Carvey, but you see, at my age we seem only to expect the law to come knocking when bad news need to be delivered.”

  “I understand,” Carvey said, yet he didn’t. “The reason I’m here is because we thought you might be able to give us some insights as to where he could be at this time.”

  “You mean you’re looking for him? Is he a fugitive? Don’t tell me.” Millicent waved an open-hand in front of her in denial. “He can’t have done whatever he’s accused of, I’m sure.”

  Carvey shook his head. “No, ma’am, nothing like that.” He had no idea how he was going to get out of that one, without antagonizing the woman.

  “Then what is it?”

  Carvey looked down at his feet.

  “All right.” Millicent appeared all of a sudden to sympathize with the officer’s obvious plight. “You probably can’t divulge the reason behind your query, is that it?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s correct.”

  “Well then, why didn’t you say so?” She stared at him for a moment. “Alright, far from me to impede your investigation, because I’m sure that’s what this is, let me tell you as much as I can about Samuel.”

  Carvey, without a word, took his notebook out of his pocket, and, pen poised, looked at Millicent expectantly.

  “Let me tell you first that I have not seen Samuel for almost two years now. In itself, that fact is not surprising. He’s told me that he’s working for a large organization in Israel, and he only comes home for a few weeks from time to time.”

  “You think he has not come back for the past two years then?”

  “That’s right. You see, I leave this apartment every winter and take myself up to my house on the Sunshine Coast until October. I find the winters in Melbourne too enduring for me. While I was away, Samuel stayed at my place when he was in town. He would always give me a ring before he would come in, so I would know how long he would be staying.”

  “And this year, he has not rung you to tell you he was coming to stay?”

  “No. So far he hasn’t.”

  “Would it surprise you if I told you that he’s been staying in Sydney for the past several months then?”

  “That it would. Yes, indeed it would, Officer Carvey. Yet, if I think about it, he might have wanted to stay near the Manly beaches.…”

  Carvey was all ears now. “And why would you say that, ma’am?”

  “Well, you see, for one thing, Samuel is an avid swimmer and one must admit that Melbourne’s surrounding waters are nothing compared to those of Sydney, wouldn’t one?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’d say you’ve got a point there,” Carvey replied, grinning.

  “On the other hand, Samuel often visited my friend, Eugenie…”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry…, didn’t I say?”

  “No, ma’am, you didn’t.”

  “Well then…, Eugenie is the artist who painted these...” Millicent ran her extended arm around the room. “Eugenie did all these from her flat in Sydney.”

  “And Samuel was acquainted with the artist?”

  “Oh yes. Actually, he was more interested in her daughter, Talya.”

  In a jerk, Carvey dropped his pen. He could not believe what he had heard. It had to be a mistake.

  “You look surprised, Officer. Have I said something curious?”

  Picking up his pen from the floor, Carvey uttered, “Yeah…, I mean, yes, ma’am. Would you mind if I ask you if you recognize this woman?” Carvey pulled out Talya’s photo from the back of his notebook and handed it to the author.

  “Oh my! After all these years! Yes, yes, that’s Talya Krist.”

  “Pardon me, but did you say “Talya Krist”?”

  “Sure, she was the daughter of Eugenie Krist. Why? Does she have another name now?”

  “We know her as Ms Kartz.”

  “Oh yes, of course. How silly of me. Talya married a man by the name of Moses Rubenstein. The marriage didn’t last but a year or two, and then Eugenie told me that she chose to
revert to her grandmother’s name—Kartz. Her grandmother was from Poland, you see, and she always wanted to observe the Jewish tradition of keeping the family name.”

  “Why not Krist then, since that was her birth name?” Carvey asked with curiosity.

  “As I understand it, she didn’t want to live in the shadow of her father. She admired him; oh yes, there was even adoration in that young woman’s heart, but she needed to be her own person.”

  “May I ask how you know Ms Kartz so well?”

  “Oh of course, you don’t know... Talya Krist, as I knew her, was a very talented writer. She was amazing. I tell you, she wrote poetry and prose like no one else I knew. To this day, I have not met another child like her. And her mother asked me if I could take her under my wing, sort of thing, and I did. For a few years, while they stayed in Melbourne, Talya would come to me and I tried to teach her.” Millicent paused. She seemed to be lost in her recollection of the time with her pupil. “Teach her, is not quite correct,” she went on musingly. “You see, she had it in her. It was very much an innate talent, a gift, if you prefer. All I did was to help her forge her knowledge.”

  Carvey could not believe his luck. Sorenson had been right. There was a connection between Samuel and Talya. “And Samuel was well acquainted with Talya then?”

  Millicent nodded, still lost in thought.

  “But you said she married someone else; that Moses bloke. How did that happen?”

  “I don’t exactly know. Talya wanted to escape, be her own woman, as I said. I guess this marriage provided an opportunity for her to be away from a very protective, even possessive mother, enabling her to blossom into the marriage.”

  “I gather she didn’t get what she wanted”

  “You’re right. Moses expected a lot from Talya and she had nothing to offer. I mean she couldn’t have children and all she cared about was to travel; to re-visit some of the places where she grew up. Yet, Moses was a sedentary man. He was everything Talya wasn’t.”

  “Why didn’t she marry Samuel then, if he was so taken with her?”

  “Ah, yes. Well, Samuel had a lot of travel in his blood as well, and he really didn’t want a marriage to tie him down. Besides, Talya felt she needed to look after her mother—before she met Moses that is. She was getting on in years by then. She gave birth to her daughter very late in life and she relied very much on Talya for everything.”

  As he was finishing taking down what Millicent had told him, Carvey raised his head to her. “One last question, Mrs. Harsinai, if you have no objection”

  “No-no, go ahead, but I don’t know what else I could tell you about Samuel or Talya.”

  Nevertheless, Carvey decided to try. “Do you know if Talya and Samuel kept in touch after Talya’s divorce, in particular?”

  “That, I wouldn’t know. Besides, when Moses signed the “Get” for Talya…”

  Carvey fixed his gaze on the old woman. “Sorry to cut you off, Mrs. Harsinai, but what is a “Get”?”

  “Oh, of course, you don’t know. It’s a letter. According to Jewish law, the man who accepts or wants to divorce his wife writes a letter that releases her from her bonds to him.”

  “I see, and Talya got this letter?”

  “Yes, she did, and right after that, I think Moses went back to Israel... Oh, I remember now; he was killed in a car crash. I’m sorry I had completely forgotten about that.”

  “That’s alright, ma’am.”

  Millicent didn’t seem to have heard his comment. She went on, “You see, Talya left Australia soon after her mother’s death. That would be three years ago now. She went back to Vancouver, I believe. As for Samuel, he was already gone to assume his function in Tel-Aviv, some three or four years before that. And I didn’t hear Talya mention correspondence of any sort between the two before her mother died.”

  “Well, thank you so much for your assistance, Mrs. Harsinai. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  “The pleasure was all mine, young man. It’s not often I get the visit of Adonis…,” Millicent joked. Carvey looked at her curiously. “I can see you don’t know Adonis, do you?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t. Is he someone else I should know?”

  Millicent giggled. “No, dear, no-no, he is a mythical man of great beauty—just like you!”

  Carvey didn’t know what to do. He decided to ignore the remark and just smiled. “Thank you.” He got to his feet.

  “Don’t mention it, Officer Carvey.”

  When Carvey left the building, he was elated. He had never felt so thrilled during his career. He had not made a long awaited arrest of a famous perpetrator; he had not participated in an overwhelming task force of any sort; yet he had interviewed an old woman, and in less than an hour had unlocked the door to making the connection to an international plot between the powers of this world. He knew now how Mark Gilford felt and why he was such a good agent.