The old man was dressed in a white silk shirt and pale linen trousers, slightly stained with green but crisply pressed, and a black-banded straw hat.
He nodded formally. “Miss Ciampi, I believe,” he said.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“One is informed. The Ashakians speak highly of you. And, of course, you made an impression on Stephan Sokoloff: a formidable woman, he said. Formidable and beautiful.”
He finished his pruning, and placed his clippers and the cuttings in a small basket. “These are raisin grapes. Or sultanas, as they should be called. Raisins to me are still dried currants. These, you know, don’t dry well in this climate, but I grow them anyway. My uncle had a whole vineyard full of them in Smyrna. Shall we return to the terrace?”
Civilized, thought Marlene. Not like interrogating Vinnie the Guinea, although she suspected that Sarkis Kerbussyan could eat any number of Vinnies like raisins. They sat in the wicker armchairs around a wicker and glass table. Coffee and little cakes appeared, brought by the silent housemaid. Kerbussyan talked to Marlene about the garden, and they watched the lush late-summer twilight gather over the dark trees.
Marlene could see Karp getting more irritable. He liked interrogations to take place in smelly, green-painted rooms. Finally he said, “Mr. Kerbussyan, this is all very nice, but you know we’re not here to talk about your roses. We’re investigating a homicide, one in which you’re more involved than you led me to believe at our previous meeting.”
“I? How involved, Mr. Karp?”
“You lied to me last time I was here. You said you didn’t know anything about Mehmet Ersoy’s box of cash. In fact, that was your cash he had, some of it, at least. You’d been buying art objects from him for months before he died.”
“Buying art is not a crime,” said Kerbussyan after a brief silence.
“No, but concealing evidence in a homicide investigation is. You remember last time I was here, we waltzed through some likely scenarios about why Ersoy was killed? Let me add one. A patriotic Armenian art collector starts buying Armenian art objects from a Turk whose brother is smuggling them out of Turkey. At first he buys them through an art dealer, but after a while the source is so good that he decides to do private deals. The Turk starts slipping him fakes. The Armenian gets pissed off and has the Turk shot. You like that one?”
“Mr. Karp, do you believe that I would employ Aram Tomasian, a child I have known all his life, as an assassin in an act of revenge?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” said Karp sharply. “It’s what a jury will believe. It explains Ersoy’s money. Tomasian is linked to you. When it’s presented, it’ll be devastating.”
Kerbussyan seemed not to hear this. He repeated, “But do you believe it?”
Marlene said, “I don’t believe it.”
The two men stared at her in astonishment. Karp opened his mouth to say something, but she pressed on. “This is what happened. Ersoy offered you items. Some of them were fakes. You bought them anyway. You knew they were fakes, but you didn’t care, because you knew that Ersoy had something that you had to have and you thought that if you kept him on the line he’d eventually offer it to you. This whole thing is about the St. Gregory mask, isn’t it, Mr. Kerbussyan? And that’s why you’re going to help us, to work with us, to find the killers. Because whoever killed Ersoy has the mask. That’s why they killed him.”
Karp could see from the stony look that passed briefly across the old man’s face that Marlene’s words had struck home. He recalled her mentioning something about a mask to him when she told him about her interview with Sokoloff, but he hadn’t registered it as more than an oddity. Now it seemed to be central to the whole case. Karp had no idea how Marlene had just put all of it together, but he knew a fat opening when he saw one. He said, “Maybe you better tell us about this mask, Mr. Kerbussyan.”
“It’s not a myth, is it?” asked Marlene.
Kerbussyan studied both their faces before answering. “No, it is not. It exists.”
“What is it?” asked Marlene. “Sokoloff mentioned that you had a line on it, but he didn’t say much about it. Why is it so important?”
Kerbussyan took a deep breath and looked back at his garden, at the declining sun lighting the Palisades.
Then he faced them again and said, “It is a long story. Everything to do with Armenia is a long story, but this is longer than most. You may not credit that the hand of the past can reach forward to kill a man in the streets of a modern city.”
Marlene said, “A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, a cop, was blown to pieces because of something that happened in the fifteenth century in Serbia. So try me.”
“Well, then,” said Kerbussyan. “Ancient Armenia. A pagan kingdom caught between the declining power of Rome and the Persian Empire. In 224 A.D. a revolution in Persia overthrew the Artaxid dynasty and brought Artashir and the Sassanids to power. Khosrov, the king of Armenia, was related to the Artaxids, and he went to war against Persia. During this war a noble named Anak, who was loyal to the Sassanids, killed Khosrov, and the Persians took over the country. Anak himself was killed later.
“Two boys, the sons of Khosrov and Anak, were left fatherless by these events. They are close friends, nobles, raised at court. But they are separated. One, Trdat, son of King Khosrov, was taken to Roman territory as a ward of the imperial court. The emperor Diocletian was always interested in a royal pawn to use against the Persians. Anak’s son, Krikor, was sent to Caesaria, in Palestine, where he came under the influence of the bishop and was raised as a Christian. He becomes a priest.
“Time passes. Trdat is now a famous warrior. He does great service for the emperor, saving his life, and as a reward Diocletian gives him military support. Trdat raises the Armenian barons, and the Persians are thrown out. The young man is crowned in Vagharshapat as Trdat III. Tiridates the Great, as he is known to the West.
“At about the same time, Krikor returns to Armenia to preach the word of God to his old friend. But Trdat now learns about the conspiracy of Anak. Krikor is the son of the man who killed his father. He has Krikor tortured and thrown into a deep pit to starve.”
“Get to the mask,” said Karp.
Kerbussyan smiled wanly. “Patience is essential to an understanding of Armenian affairs, Mr. Karp. Where was I? Yes, there was at this time in Nicomedia, where Diocletian reigned, a beautiful Armenian nun named Hrip’sime. The emperor desired her; she resisted and fled to Vagharshapat and the protection of Trdat. But Trdat was as lustful as his sponsor. He too attempted to rape Hrip’sime and when she fled from him, had her tracked down, tortured, and killed.
“After that, God cursed Trdat and sent him mad. The legend was that he turned into a wild boar. He was an animal for ten years. The king’s sister, who was a secret Christian, had a dream in which Krikor rose from the grave and saved her brother. She had the pit investigated, and there was Krikor alive and well, a miracle.
“So, of course, Krikor cures King Trdat, who in his gratitude and repentance converts to Christianity. Krikor preaches to the Armenian nobility, a sermon that lasts for sixty days. The whole nation becomes Christian, the first nation to do so. Krikor becomes known to history as Krikor Lousavorchi, Gregory the Illuminator. This is a little after 300 A.D.
“St. Gregory, as I should call him now, now goes through the Armenian nation stamping out paganism. He dies old, mourned by the king and the people. On his deathbed a plaster mask of his face is made, and a casting is made from this, in gold. Gregory’s bones are taken by monks to a secret place in the mountains. The mask becomes part of the treasure of the Catholicos in Ejmiatzin.